


Down To His Rotten Soul

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-25
Updated: 2009-03-31
Packaged: 2019-01-19 17:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12414426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Heroically, Harry Potter sacrificed himself to defeat Voldemort. The peace given to him in death, proved to be Ginny’s unrest. Her undying love forced her to do the unthinkable: Ginny brought Harry back from the dead! But, it wasn’t her Harry; her hero. It was a Harry she loved, but a Harry she feared, and now a Harry she had ...





	1. Undying Love

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Undying Love**

Britain’s wizarding society was flourishing. Business was better than it had been in several decades. New stores opened, new businesses began, and money flowed freely into all of them. There had also been a massive baby boom within the last decade. Families grew to sizes the parents hadn’t imagine they would even want a decade earlier. 

This “New Britain Society”, as the Daily Prophet labelled it five years ago, was due to the freedom the country’s citizens felt. The darkest wizard in a century, Lord Voldemort, had been defeated at the hands of Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. Unfortunately, the Boy did not live through the final battle, having courageously sacrificed his life to save the wizarding world. He was greatly honored after his death, though his true friends and surrogate family mourned their lost more than enjoyed their freedom. 

However, through the course of time, all of them went on to live their lives. Ron and Hermione, his best friends who fought by his side until he fell, were now married with a three year old son they affectionately named after who would have been his godfather, Harry. Fred and George Weasley were business men to be reckoned with across the wizarding business world. At least one shop opened on every continent, and several with multiple stores within. The Weasley boys lavished their family with their wealth, having helped their father rebuild the Burrow, bought Ron and Hermione their first home, as well as Bill and Fleur, and Charlie and his wife. Percy never found the heart to come back home. However, the Weasleys stayed a happy family with their new additions, and never forgotten losses. 

The last of Weasley children however, was never happy, at least not when she wasn’t in the presences of her family and friends. She rarely smiled, and turned down many suitors longing to be with the beautiful red head. Ginny Weasley, now twenty-six years old and an editor at the Daily Prophet, lived alone in the home her twin brothers had purchased for her. The loss her family suffered with Harry was one she felt every day since his death. 

Every day she cried; every night she dreamed of him; but every hour of this particular day, she hoped she had gotten everything right. 

Ginny loved Harry well before their first kiss in her fifth year. She waited and watched him suffer with the hand life had dealt him and his mishap with Cho Chang, thinking all along that maybe one day it would be her he would turn to for reassurance, inspiration to continue on, and lastly, love. Then one glorious day, it was her he wanted and Ginny had no intentions of ever letting him go. But unfortunately, he had to let her go, claiming it was for her safety, with the unverbalized promise that once Voldemort was defeated, they could be together…forever. So she stayed by his side, fought in the war with the understanding that they were not a couple, but telling herself that her love for him was so strong, it would help save him from what had ultimately been his fate. And in case it hadn’t, she had made plans she hoped would insure that she could prove her love to him once more. 

Now Ginny stood in her basement over a large boiling cauldron. She had added several ‘ingredients’, all while continuously scrutinizing over the notes she had made, the book she had studied for nearly ten years, and the notes she had stolen from Harry in his final year on earth. Ready to add to the last ‘ingredient’, Ginny held a Golden Snitch in her hand. This snitch meant the world to Harry for it was from his last game of his sixth year at Hogwarts. When he decided not to return to school his final year, McGonagall had made sure that he received it as a reminder of the moments in his life when he hadn’t suffered. Ginny was sent to deliver it to him, and it proved to be the one thing, and night, she needed for what she was preparing in her basement at that moment. 

She prayed for any higher power that existed to forgive her for stepping on his or her territory.  Then the redhead begged for strength and the astuteness to have gotten it right.  The lifeless-of-its-own-right snitch fell through her fingers and into the cauldron as she said “Amen” to her basement ceiling. 

Backing away to her wall, Ginny watched the cauldron shake. Bright sparks were already shooting up before she added the golden ball, but now a nearly blinding light erupted into the air and she sank to floor in pure terror of what she may have created. If she would die from this having gone wrong, Ginny was ready to accept it. 

At least I could be with him if I do. No, I’ll probably go to Hell instead for what I’ve done! she thought. 

Suddenly, Ginny didn’t see the white glow outside of her now closed eye lids. Still afraid to open them, she stayed down on the floor with her eyes shut as if someone would wake her and tell her it was only a bad dream. Tears began to well in her closed eyes when she began to hear a heavy panting that was not her own. Ginny opened her eyes slowly, knowing she could not have done it right; that what she longed for most her life wasn’t again in her presence. 

But it was. Harry stood in the no longer boiling cauldron, naked and panting with his eyes shut. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. Ginny’s mouth hung open as she slowly rose from the basement floor. He looked whole, he looked solid, he looked…alive. If she hadn’t felt the searing pain from hitting the floor on her heavily bandaged thigh, Ginny would have sworn she was dreaming. 

“H…Harry?” Ginny called quietly when she finally found her voice. She remained against the wall, to fearful to step toward him. 

Harry’s shivering body twitched at the sound of his name. He slowly raised his head and opened his green eyes. 

Ginny covered her mouth, fit to gasp but not wanting too when she watched him nod only slightly, before lowering his head again. Watching him shiver, it finally dawned her to give him the robe she had lying to the side in case it did work. She grabbed it and walked tentatively over to the form of Harry Potter in front of her. When she touched his body to help him out the cauldron, he was cover in cold moisture. But he was solid; she could feel bones in his arms, his shoulder blades, and the bones in his fingers. It was really him. 

After she robed him, Ginny stared at his lowered head. “Harry?” she called in nearly a whisper, with the hopes to hear the voice she missed so much. But he only lifted his head and looked at her. Now Ginny couldn’t help herself, she slowly lifted her hand and gently stroked his cheek as she watched the eyes she loved. Something was beginning to happen to Ginny that hadn’t in many years, something that seemed to physically hurt her to do; she began to smile. With elation coursing through her body now, she threw her arms around his neck, squeezing him tightly. “Oh Harry, I’ve missed you so much!” she said over his shoulder the best she could. “I…” 

Ginny paused her speaking when she realized she was the only one doing the hugging. Harry’s arms hadn’t lifted off his sides. He barely allowed himself to bend so that her shorter self could hug him properly. His body was rigid and unaccommodating to her affection. Ginny pulled herself away and looked into his vacant green eyes. “I’m…sorry…I didn’t mean to…grab you like that…  I don’t know how…long I should wait to - or wait until you feel…comfortable with being…touched,” she apologized, still only getting the same response as before. 

Ginny noticed that something was missing from his face, something that made Harry, Harry. It wasn’t his scar, for it shone just as vivid and fresh looking as it always did. “Oh!” she said suddenly, and walked over to the table she had retrieved his robe from. “Here.” She held out his glasses. “Maybe you can see better with these,” she said, knowing that wasn’t her real intentions. The vacant look in his eyes was actually beginning to scare her. Yet now, she held out a pair of glasses, his glasses that they allowed her to keep after his death, along with his clothes and his wand. The Dursley’s had flat out refused to take any of his “rubbish” they said, after they learned of his death. 

But Harry just looked at the glasses; his expression unreadable. Ginny gently placed them on his face, and allowed her fingers to brush across his now warm cheek. She desperately wanted to touch his skin, desperately wanted to kiss him, desperately wanted to hold him in her arms forever. However, he didn’t look as inviting to that type of affection at the moment as she had hoped he would be, and Ginny decided she better control her desires until he seemed ready. 

“Food!” she said suddenly, causing him to jump. “You must be starved…  I mean…  I…well, anyway, I’ll make you something.” 

Getting him to walk up her basement stairs had proven to be a difficult task. Harry didn’t seem use to his new body yet, and he wobbled dangerously on the steps as Ginny held on to him to keep him steady. Getting him to bend and sit at the table also proved trying as well. But what seemed to be the most difficult was getting him to speak or respond to her other than the occasional nod or slight shake of the head. 

Now a bowl of steaming onion soup sat in front of him and he merely stared at the contents in the bowl. He hadn’t lifted his arms to the table at all, only left them sitting in his lap. Ginny, ignoring her soup as well, got up from her seat and sat closer to him. She tried unsuccessfully to feed him, at the very most having gotten him to take in only three spoonfuls.

Harry hadn’t spoken, he hadn’t changed his blank expression, and he moved his body no more than she made him. Ginny didn’t know what to do. She knew he could feel his body because he shivered when he appeared in the cauldron. She knew he could hear because he would look at her when she called his name. He didn’t seem to be in any physical pain because she already asked him. He just refused to speak, refused to show any emotion or expression other than the vacant one he wore. This confused Ginny because she remembered Harry telling her that once Wormtail had brought Voldemort back in her third year, he was able to speak almost instantly. And Ginny knew she had performed the spell correctly. 

She had done extensive research to find Harry’s parents actual graves. She asked for forgiveness from James and any higher power when she performed a spell that extracted a bone from his grave. She had visited Azkaban under the false pretense of writing an article for the Prophet on the former Death Eaters, which gave her access to Draco Malfoy, whom she stunned, cut and collected a vile of his blood. And now she had a rather large bandage around her thigh where she removed a chuck of her own flesh to add to the mixture. There was however, one exception. 

Ginny didn’t have a smaller, helpless form of Harry to place in the cauldron like Wormtail had of Voldemort, she only had a Horcrux. A Horcrux she had made of him without his knowledge. While Harry was on his quest to study and find all the bits of Voldemort’s soul in order to destroy them, Ginny read through, even stole several of Harry’s notes. She learned what a Horcrux was through him, and how to create one through his notes and a book she found in the Black family library. Ginny had become increasingly weary about Harry’s survival through the war, and out of desperation, she decided to take a bit of his soul the night he killed Severus Snape. 

Sent to deliver the golden snitch from Hogwarts, Ginny found Harry at Grimmauld Place in a mess of tears on his bed. It was his first kill, and he wasn’t handling it well. Ginny did all she could to comfort her friend, but she soon found her self on his bed enduring his feverish, tear flavored kisses. She welcomed it, wanting it as much as he needed it. But in their fit of fully clothed passion, Ginny composed herself enough to realize that her opportunity to create the Horcrux had arrived. As Harry devoured her neck, she was able to find the discard snitch on his bed, take out her wand, and nonverbally perform the complicated spell without Harry being the wiser. Ginny watched through fluttering eyes due to his intensity, as a bit of his soul lift from his back, hanging aimlessly in the air above them. Realizing she had to now work fast because he was kissing back up her jaw line and would soon reach her lips covering her eyes, she held the snitch near the bit of soul and guided the portion into the object just before Harry had reached her mouth. 

Allowing both the snitch and her wand to fall to the bedroom floor, ready for what ever step they were about to take, Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck matched his every kiss. They were both inexperience, and that night, they would remain that way for as soon as the snitch hit the floor, Harry stopped abruptly. He lifted his head and seemed to blink his eyes oddly. Ginny was terrified he knew or that she had done something wrong. “What’s wrong?” she asked timidly underneath him. 

Harry shook his head hard. “I…nothing. It’s just…” After a moment, he finally managed to focus his eyes on hers. “We can’t do this.” 

Ginny felt a mixture of relief and heartbreak. “But I want to…you want to.  I-I love you, Harry,” she said caressing his cheek. 

Her heart broke even more when he explained to her that he wanted to be with her when he was free to love her. “And right now…I’m not free. I’m imprisoned by this battle, I’m imprisoned by Voldemort, and I’m imprisoned by wizarding society proclaiming me as the ‘Chosen One’. I’m not free Ginny, but once I am…”Ginny had thought of that night every day since it happened. And now as she walked a quiet Harry to a bedroom she had set up for him, she wondered if now that he was free to love her, would he? But she realized that tonight would not be the night to find out. 

They entered the bedroom. Ginny left Harry for a moment to retrieve some pajamas from out a dresser drawer. She laid them on the bed, not wanting to disrobe him but wanting him to do it on his own. She pulled the covers back on the bed, and then walked him over to it. Sitting him down next to his pajamas, she stepped back and looked at him nervously. “Harry, I…” she paused when he slowly lifted his head to meet her eyes. “I’m willing to…explain…everything…when you’re ready to hear it. But for now…maybe rest - well, you’ve gotten a lot of rest - but in this body, I mean…I’m sorry. Maybe some sleep will be beneficial for both of us. I’m down the hall if you need anything,” she explained, wringing her hands nervously. 

Harry didn’t even use his neck muscles to acknowledge her statement this time, but simply stared at her vacantly. Needing to get away from his gaze, she left the bedroom. Tears fell down her face before she reached her own room. ************ Ginny tossed and turn most of the night. For the moments she did sleep, she had nightmares of Harry returning from the dead without his skin, or without his eyes, or screaming in some kind of eternal pain. When she was awake, her reality was slightly more disconcerting. She would often go down to Harry’s room to check on him. Every time she did, she quietly cracked open the door, and every time he was still sitting in the same position on the bed she had left him, in the robe she put him in, and with his eyes already poised on the door when she looked in. For eleven hours, they played this game. By nearly 6 a.m. when she checked on him again, she could have sworn his vacant expression was being challenged by an actual emotion, one she could not identify. As she apologized for the umpteenth time for “disturbing” him, she closed the door and snuck off to her bedroom, having not heard a chair in his room move across the floor. 

By 10 a.m., Ginny had already eaten some form of breakfast as she watched her stairs. She hoped Harry would come down on his own, but as she waited, she realized he wouldn’t be. Piling fruit, muffins, and juice on a tray, Ginny levitated it and had it follow her up the stairs. This time she opted to knock on Harry’s door, hoping she would hear his voice welcome her in. Unfortunately, she heard no voice and after several minutes, decided to open the door anyway. She peered in expecting to find him eerily sitting in the same position on the bed, in his robe. But he wasn’t this time. Harry was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, standing near the window of his bedroom looking up toward the sky. 

Ginny was so excited, she barely noticed the amount of clothing thrown around the room, or that the drawers where all hanging open, or that many pieces of furniture were moved, and some turned over. “Good morning, Harry,” she said with a smile. Her smile began to fade when he didn’t respond back to her, or even so much as acknowledge that she was in the room. Ginny, without realizing what she was doing, picked up the nightstand that was turned over on the floor, and levitated the tray onto it. “H-how are you feeling today?” she asked nervously. Again, she received no response. 

Having stood there in the silent room for several minutes, watching him watch the sky, Ginny decided to leave him alone. Before she reached his bedroom door, she heard a squeak of a chair near her. She turned toward the chair, knowing she hadn’t actually seen it move on its own in her peripheral vision. Surely, she hadn’t, or maybe someone moved it. She glanced back at Harry. There was no wand in his hand, and his body hadn’t moved from its original position near the window. Ginny shook her head and grabbed the door knob once more. 

“I was in my mother’s arms…” said an even voice she hadn’t heard in over a decade. 

Ginny stopped in her tracks. Turning slowly around again, she saw him still watching the sky. “Harry?” 

“I was in my mother’s arms…” he repeated in the same tone, to the sky. Ginny was instantly hit with extreme guilt and she lowered her head to the floor. “I was in my mother’s arms…then suddenly, I was yanked from her…and found myself in a cauldron.  My mum…she-she tried to hold onto me; my dad and Sirius tried to help her…but suddenly…” He turned his gaze to Ginny. “I was…here…with you. Why, Ginny? Why am I here?” Ginny couldn’t respond and was too ashamed to lift her head. “What’s happened to me? What have I done wrong…to deserve to be back here?” Harry asked, pain evident in his voice. 

Tears dripped from Ginny’s eyes. 

“Do you know what I’ve done to deserve this? Ginny, tell me if you…” 

“YOU LEFT ME!” she yelled, lifting her head up. “You…” Ginny fell to her knees on the hard wooden floor, and sobbed. “…that’s what you did,” she sobbed quietly into her hands. 

Harry slowly walked over to her, and stood over her whimpering form. “What does that mean?” he asked evenly over her. “Does that mean…you…brought me back?” 

Ginny sniffed hard. “I…” she began, but decided it was too painful to say the actual words, so instead she nodded. Suddenly, there was a cold breeze that went over Ginny from Harry’s direction. Then, she felt her upper arms being squeezed roughly as she was yanked from the ground. Ginny was now facing the green eyes she had missed for so long, except they were unrecognizable in their present state. They seemed nearly laced with red with the amount of anger they held. “Harry…” Ginny said painfully at the pressure around her upper arms, and the fact that she was barely touching the floor. “Harry…please…you’re hurting me!” Ginny fell to the ground once more, from Harry having simply opened his hands and allowing her to drop. 

Harry sat down on the bed and threw his head into his hands. Ginny stayed on the floor not far from his feet and cried, Harry having no remorse for the state she was in. 

“I did this because…I love you, Harry,” whimpered Ginny, chancing a glance up at him. Harry now had his hair balled in his hands. The sight made her heartbreak. “Harry…I…” she reached for his leg, but he pulled it away. 

“Leave,” he said under his breath. 

Ginny sniffed. “What?” she asked, having not understood him. 

“LEAVE!” he yelled between his arms, and suddenly the bedroom door flew opened on its own. Ginny turned around to see if someone was standing there, having opened it, but she found no one. “NOW!” Harry shouted, now looking at her angrily. 

The chair she thought she saw move earlier was now really moving toward her as if to fall on her. She quickly scrambled to her feet, and with one last glance to his angry glare, she ran out the room. The door hit her back as she stepped out of it. 

“What have I done?” she asked herself as she ran to her room down the hall. ******* Ginny stayed in her living room all day. She cried on and off, keeping watch of the stairs like she had done that morning. Unfortunately or fortunately, she wasn’t quite sure anymore, no one came down her steps, and judging by the amount of noise coming from that end of her house, she didn’t think she wanted him too. 

In one of her fits of tears that evening, Ginny had cried herself to sleep on her couch. She woke in her dark living room to a cold breeze flowing over her. As she opened her eyes, she saw a dark figure standing in front of her. Ginny shrieked with fear and sat up quickly. 

“How?” the figure asked in an irate, yet even tone. 

“How wh-what?” Ginny asked, frightened. 

“You know bloody well what!” Harry said through clenched teeth. 

Ginny grabbed her wand and flicked it toward the lamps, causing them to come on. After her effort, she wish she hadn’t turned the lights on because now she could fully see an angry, sweat drenched Harry glaring down at her. Ginny was terrified, but she knew he had a right to know. She swallowed hard and patted the couch next to her. “Harry, please sit down. I’ll tell you everything…you need to know.” 

Harry glared at her for a moment longer, then sat in a chair on the other side of her coffee table. Ginny took a deep breath and tucked her hair behind her ears, as she watched the coffee table that separated her from the one she loved, and now feared. “I…Harry…” Ginny realized she didn’t quite know where to begin. “I missed you…so much…” 

“I was dead! That’s how people feel about the dead, Ginny!” Harry spat. 

Ginny swallowed at the lump forming in her throat. “No, I missed you before that. I missed you when you broke up with me. I…” 

Harry huffed. “I was still around! I…” 

Now it was Ginny’s turned to interrupt. “BUT YOU WEREN’T MINE ANYMORE!” she said louder than she intended. “I…loved you, Harry. I love you still. It wasn’t fair for me to lose you…again. It wasn’t fair that you weren’t allowed to live after you defeated Voldemort. You deserved a life. We deserved a life together,” she explained, looking at him with pleading eyes hoping he would understand. 

Harry glared at her for a moment. “Don’t make it sound like you did this for me, Ginny. You did this for you, admit it. What a consolation prize I received for defeating that bastard, having to go to heaven and be with my parents and Sirius.” Ginny lowered her head again. “Then to have them taken away from me again…to come back here? To a world that never allowed me to live my own life anyway! To a world that others saw me not as human, not as a child, but as something sent to save their own skins! I was only sixteen when they declared I be the ‘Chosen One’, the one to save their lives! I was fifteen when they splashed my name about, calling me nutters, and not believing me about Voldemort! I was seventeen when I sacrificed my life for EVERYONE, hoping that with death, I would find peace! But now I’m back here, because someone else has made a decision for me!”“Didn’t you love me, Harry?” Ginny nearly shouted through her tears. “At any moment of our lives, did you ever?” 

Harry stood up and she yelped slightly in fear. “I did love you! I broke up with you to keep you safe, my first real chance at love and I had to let you go! I sacrificed my life for you too!” 

Ginny bravely stood up as well. “Then this could be our chance! This could be our time together! And you could have the life you deserved!” 

“I deserved to see my parents again! And I had that! I was…in her arms…” Harry lowered his head, looking at his hands as if he could see his mother. Ginny walked slowly over to him. Fearfully, she lifted her hand to reach for his arm. “Don’t touch me!” he growled. 

“Harry, I…” 

Harry sat back down. “Sit,” he ordered. “I want to know how.” 

Ginny considered him for a moment, and then returned to her spot on the couch. “Surely, it’s not hard for you to guess how,” she said, taking liberty to be slightly sarcastic. “You’ve watched Voldemort return how many times? I’m sure you can figure it out.” 

The green of Harry’s eyes could hardly be seen as much as he narrowed them at Ginny. “I didn’t make a Horcrux.” 

“I did it for you.” 

Harry’s knuckles were white from the tight fists he clenched on either side of him. Sweat from anger beading on his scarlet forehead. “What?” he barely said out loud. 

“That night we were going to make love at Grimmauld Place, but you stopped us. I did it that night and put it in the snitch I brought you from Hogwarts,” explained Ginny, wand in her hand, in her lap just in case she had to use it. And judging by his expression, and how cold it had become in the large living room, she just might have too. “I made sure after you…died…that I received it. Before your death, I had studied your notes on Horcruxes, and did some studying on my own. Then I remembered what you told me about the night in the graveyard when he returned. I performed that same ritual. And now, you’re here.” 

Silence fell in the room for what seemed like an eternity to Ginny. She didn’t know if she welcomed it, or if she should be afraid of it considering that he kept his eyes on her for the entire time. 

“Bone of the father…” Harry suddenly said quietly. 

“I…found out where your parents were buried and…” 

Harry shut his eyes tightly, lowering his head. He swallowed hard, trying to get the image of her digging up his dead father for a bone out of his mind. “Flesh of the servant…” 

Ginny simply lifted her shorts leg and showed him her heavily bandaged thigh. 

Hesitantly he added, “Blood of the enemy…” 

Ginny looked away from him. “I - it’s Draco Malfoy’s,” she barely said out loud. Suddenly she jumped as Harry threw his head over the side of the chair and vomited. She stood up, wanting to help him as he continued to empty out his empty stomach. “Harry…” she said walking closer. 

“Stay away from me!” he yelled, his mouth moist with bile. 

“I’m…sorry, Harry! I’m soo…” Ginny began to sob again. 

His stomach no longer containing anything in which to expel, Harry jumped from the couch. Ginny kept her wand low, willing to take what ever he saw fit to do to her. But Harry stalked passed her and headed toward her front door. 

“Harry! Wait! Where are you going?” she called after him, but he had disappeared into the night by the time she reached her own front door. ****************** Harry couldn’t feel the ground under his feet, he couldn’t feel the brisk night air cooling the sweat on his skin, and he certainly couldn’t feel the light rain that fell on him. The only thing he felt was the heat of rage inside his body. His heart was beating a mile a minute, and his jaw was clenched so tightly, he could almost hear his teeth grinding. His mind was cloudy, as visions of Lily reaching for him swayed in his head, then the cold cauldron he stood in when he returned. 

However, the cool night air and its drizzling rain did nothing to calm Harry’s anger. He remembered his final moment when he and Voldemort raised their wands to each, expelling green lights simultaneously. He remembered instantly appearing in a cloudy place, with his mother, father and godfather all waiting to greet him. In his death, he felt an immense freedom and he was content with that, having come from a world that treated him as public property to use, to discredit, to depend on when he couldn’t depend on them. He missed his friends and the Weasleys, but his freedom was welcomed and not to be tampered with. 

Now Harry was back, walking down a street he had never seen before, in a world he didn’t belong to anymore. But something was different about him, something was missing. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he knew it was something that would have kept his rage under control. Now nothing could and nothing would. All the disturbing thoughts he once had in his first lifetime, which were quickly suppress by whatever he was now missing, came flooding back. And he let them, he enjoyed them, he egged them on… 

It can’t be… Harry heard a woman’s voice say. Blimey, that bloke looks just like… He looked up to see an older woman walking toward him. She looked heavily intoxicated. As she got closer, her eyes widen. Bloody hell… Harry heard her say, but did not see her mouth move. As the two strangers passed each other on the street, their eyes locked. Harry Potter… he heard the woman say, again without her mouth moving, before her eyes rolled back in her head and she hit the lawn beside her. 

Harry stood over the motionless woman for a moment. Confusion was the only other emotion he knew, besides sadness, since he had been back, and now it had taken over his anger. It was not surprising that she knew who he was. When he was alive, he was easily recognized by his scar. However, the fact that he could hear her speak without her opening her mouth… 

Suddenly, a memory came crashing back into Harry’s mind. He was twelve years old, standing in Dumbledore’s office after having defeated Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. Harry remembered Dumbledore telling him that the reason he could speak Parseltongue was because the night of Voldemort’s first attempt at killing Harry, he had inadvertently transferred some of his powers to him. Voldemort was heavily skilled at reading minds, a talent he often used on Harry. Now Harry possessed another skill of the defeated Dark Lord. 

It wouldn’t be the last of their similarities. ***** Ginny woke up on her couch in a sunlit living room. She knew it had to be late in the morning and she was, again, late for work. Having no intentions of going in, she quickly scribbled a letter to her boss and sent it away by owl. She then began the slow ascent up her stairs toward Harry’s room. Ginny was terrified he wouldn’t or he would be in there. Actually she was surprised that she had woken up that morning at all; sure she wouldn’t survive the night. 

Nervously, she stood in front of Harry’s door. Knocking lightly, she hoped for the best. That he would open the door and be happy to see her. That he would hold her in his arms and thank her profusely for bringing him back so that he may have the life he deserved…with her. 

That she hadn’t made the biggest mistake of her life. 

When she received no answer at the door, she swallowed her fear and opened it. Harry was there and he was asleep. Looking like he didn’t even make an effort to take his clothing off, he lay across the blankets with his shoes still on. The room was in complete shambles. Broken chairs, tables and dressers drawers were sprawled every where. Ginny had to step over clothing and broken furniture just to make it over to the bed. She noticed that the box she had once kept in her basement of all of Harry’s belongings was the only thing that hadn’t been thrown around the floor. His wand and Invisibility Cloak were place neatly on top of the box. 

“Harry?” Ginny whispered quietly. Harry didn’t stir. “Harry?” she called again, this time reaching out to touch his arm. However, her arm was quickly intercepted by his and was being squeezed tightly. 

“Don’t touch me,” he growled, lifting his head from the bed and glaring at her.Ginny yanked her hand from his grasp. “I was just checking to see if you were all right,” she said, nearly growling as he did. 

Harry turned over on the bed and sat. “Of course I’m not bloody all right!” 

The redhead sighed; feeling completely out of answers to help ease his anger.  “Can I change that in anyway?” Ginny asked quietly, hopefully. 

“You’ve done enough, haven’t you? But there is one thing you could do for me right now. Get out!” he nearly shouted, before turning his back on her on his bed. 

Ginny backed away from the bed, rubbing her now sore wrist, and watching him. “H-Harry, I was…thinking of inviting…Ron and Hermione…over….  You know they are married now and…” 

Harry slowly turned to face her, and his eyes sent shivers down her spine. “You can’t be serious?” he asked through gritted teeth. 

Ginny swallowed. “I…well, yes. I think…having people around you…that cared - CARE about you…maybe it would bring you out of this mood. And…” 

“The only thing that would bring me ‘out of this mood’ would be to be in my rightful place. DEAD AND GONE!” he yelled. Ginny jumped, not at the sound of his voice, but at the fact that when he yelled, his bedroom window cracked instantly. 

Ginny’s heart was pounding. The love she had for the angry person in front of her was slowly beginning to change solely over to extreme fear. She needed some help in this, because she didn’t know what to do with him. She didn’t know if anyone would understand or even forgive her for what she had done. Her family would forgive her, she hoped. They would understand how lonely she felt and how much she loved him. And the love they had for him would bring him out of his foul mood too, Ginny thought. “What about mum and dad? They’re your family too. They would love to…” Ginny stopped as the lamp near Harry’s bed shattered suddenly. The door behind her swung open, nearly knocking into her. 

“Family…” Harry barely opened his mouth to say. “I was with my family…until you…” he stopped himself. His eyes darted around as if he was lost in thought for a moment. “Leave Ginny,” he finally said. 

“N - no, Harry, I won’t! You need to listen…” Ginny declared bravely, but quickly stopped as Harry stood up. “I…want you to understand - HARRY!” she yelled as he lifted his wandless hand in air and Ginny found herself rising from the ground. “How are you - what are you doing - Harry, please…” But her words meant nothing as she found herself suddenly flying backwards through the air and out the room with a waved of his hand. She hit her head on a wall, saw stars before her eyes and then nothing else. 

Ginny rubbed the back of her head when she woke up and found herself on the floor of her hallway. Harry’s door was closed, and the light of day that would have been pouring from underneath it, seemed to have gone dim. She had not a clue how long she had been laying in her hallway. Resolving to go to her own room, and away from Harry’s, Ginny threw herself on her bed and cried, barely noticing it was nearly six in the evening. ****** Harry found himself walking down a very familiar street. He had Apparated to a park he often sat in during his summer holidays away from Hogwarts. However, with his Invisibility Cloak on, no one noticed a man suddenly appearing near the swing set. Children ran passed him as he walked unseen down Privet Drive. He was numb all over his body, but felt it as an unusual calm. Walking pass number 6, then number 5 Privet Drive, he finally arrived at his destination. 

Having accidentally glanced at a calendar in Ginny’s house after he stepped over her body and left, Harry noticed the date. This was often the time of year Aunt Marge would visit the Dursleys. Harry hated Aunt Marge almost more than he hated the Dursleys. She would often ridicule and torment him, and they would often let her if they weren’t doing it themselves. 

“Family,” Harry said to himself with an evil smile no could see even if he wasn’t hidden under the cloak. 

He turned on the spot and Apparated inside a familiar hallway. He could hear talking and laughing going on somewhere in the house. His feet, knowing the home well, instantly guided him into the living room. No one was there, but they all, including an older, pudgier Dudley, were in the dining room. Vernon and Petunia had aged, but their pompous demeanor had stayed the same. Dudley’s insatiable appetite did not seem to fade either, and he was nearly the size of his overstuffed father. Marge looked absolutely the same, never looking decent to begin with. 

Harry watched them eat, laugh, and talk, completely unaware of his presences. Then again, when he was actually there, the situation would not be much different. However, tonight it would be, and unbeknownst to the family, they were now enjoying their last meal. 

Harry lowered the cloak. Still no one noticed. Then suddenly, Petunia gasped dropping her glass of wine on to her perfectly spotless floor. “Dear Lord, it’s a…” 

“Ghost, perhaps?” questioned Harry, finishing her statement with a smile. “No, not a ghost, my dear, sweet Aunt. Ghosts can’t hurt you. Not like I can.” 

Marge began choking on her sixth glass of brandy, while Vernon and Dudley wore matching looks of shock and terror on their fat faces. “But you’re…you’re…dead!” sputtered Vernon, food particles following each fear-filled word. 

Harry exhaled and the sinister smile left his face for a pain-filled moment. “I was,” Harry said to the floor. “But I’m not anymore. You however, shall be. _Sectumsempra_!” Harry shouted, and with a flick of his wand the large form of Vernon Dursley began to expel blood. The women screamed as Vernon grabbed at the various parts of his body that were bleeding and fell to the floor beside the table, shaking violently. Some even sprayed on Harry’s face, yet he didn’t budge, taking the pleasure in watching his Aunt’s husband slowly die in front of him. 

Dudley, being twice Harry’s size as usual, and although with fear etched in every feature of his pudgy face, lunged at Harry. Unfortunately for Dudley, he was quickly bonded to his mother as the two suddenly hit the floor, lying back to back. “I’ll deal with you two in a moment,” Harry said casually, as he watched Marge spring her large body from out her seat. 

Aunt Marge stammered her large body through the kitchen, heading for the patio door as she wailed in fear with Harry at her heels. Suddenly, to no fault of Harry’s, she tripped over her new bulldog and landed on a glass patio table, impaling herself on two of its legs. Her body twitched the last of its life out as red liquid began to stain her dreadful tweed outfit. 

Harry sucked his teeth. “Pity, I wanted the pleasure all for myself,” he said as he watched her now lifeless body encircled in pathetic Dursley blood. 

Walking back into the house, Harry could hear the whimpering of his aunt and cousin. He stood over them and smiled. “My only blood.” Harry unbound them.  Instantly, Dudley and Petunia scooted across the floor, away from him. “Don’t think you’re going anywhere…or be spared for that matter,” he said casually. Then Harry lifted his left hand, and Petunia rose, seemingly by her long bird like neck, from the ground. Tears streamed from her eyes as she grabbed futilely at what would be a hand around her neck, but found nothing there. 

“Harry…” she sputtered, her speech challenged from lack of air, “why…” 

Harry narrowed his eyes at his aunt who was now dangling in the air in front of him. “Why? You can’t be serious?” he began, shocked that there wasn’t an obvious reason he’d kill his own relative.  “The way you treated me all my life? You were my only living relative when I was left without a home and family! You were to love me, take care of me, and comfort me when I needed it! You failed to do that! Instead, you ignored me, ridiculed me, and kept me from the truth about myself and my parents…your own bloody sister for fucks sake! The only bit of love I ever saw was what you three gave to each other. I don’t know what’s worse? Never experiencing love from anyone, or watching others receive it, while choosing deliberately not to bestow upon you? And you have the audacity to ask me ‘why?’!” Harry slowly began to close his raised hands, and Petunia began to feel the bones and muscles in her thin neck constrict. 

As Petunia began to choke, Dudley sprung from the floor. Harry turned his wand instantly on his cousin as he held his aunt in the air still with wandless magic, and Dudley stopped in his tracks. “I understand how you feel, Dudders. You shouldn’t have to watch your mother die,” Harry said compassionately. “Avada Kedrva!” he then shouted causing the green light to hit Dudley in his massive chest, and him to slump down to the ground lifelessly. 

Petunia was drenched in tears, choking and whimpering in mid air. Harry turned back to his aunt. “Now you’re like me, Aunt Petunia,” he began quietly, expressionlessly.  “No family. No one to love you. And the only blood left on this planet, could care less if you live or die.”  As he went silent for a moment, only Petunia’s whimpers could be heard in the lifeless room.  

“Terribly funny how the tables can turn, isn’t it?” the Boy Hero suddenly said with a sinister smile. ***** As Harry left the house that had restricted his life growing up, and was now void of life itself, a woman and young girl were walking up the Dursley’s walkway. He slid right by them in his Invisibility Cloak and couldn’t help but to wonder who they were. 

“Think daddy’s told them, mummy?” asked the little pudgy girl who resembled Harry’s now lifeless cousin inside. 

The woman holding her daughter’s hand reminded Harry of Pansy Parkinson with her pug like face. However, this woman looked extremely nervous. “Don’t know, sweetheart. Expect your father has definitely eaten a right share of the food first before he has to tell his parents their granddaughter is a witch.” 

The little girl looked sadly at the ground. “You think they won’t love me anymore, mummy? That they won’t accept me?” The mother didn’t respond, but hugged her daughter quickly around the shoulders. 

Harry watched the two approached the front door. He shook his head, feeling no remorse for what the mother and daughter were about to witness. “You’re better off,” he said to himself as he turned and apparated on the spot. 


	2. Forsaken

**Forsaken**

Ginny left her room the next morning and headed down stairs to her owl Jinxy to see if he had brought her a letter.  She had written two in complete desperation the night before.  Sneaking around her own house to her kitchen, unaware that Harry was not in his room, she had sent them off.  

When Ginny arrived in front of Jinxy’s perch, she found only one letter.  Ripping it open quickly, she read through it.

            

_Ms. Weasley,_

_It would not be an inconvenience whatsoever for you to visit.  However, it would have to be next Tuesday because this week it strictly for preparation of the new school year._

_Until then, take care. Minerva McGonagall - Headmistress_

Ginny folded the letter and put it away.  She looked at her stairs, but decided against going up.  Instead, she pulled out a piece a parchment set to write a letter to her boss explaining that she wasn’t coming in again today.  But just as she dipped her quill into the ink, she decided to write something else instead.

_Harry,_

_I’ve gone to work.  If you need anything, help yourself.  I’ll be home by 5pm._

_Ginny_

Ginny walked back up her stairs, then tip toed down the hall to Harry’s room.  With a swish of her wand, she used a glue charm to stick the note to his door.

****

Going to work proved to be pointless because Ginny couldn’t concentrate.  All her plans and hopes had failed.  The one she loved was back, but he was not the same.  She feared him, yet still loved him, but she felt shameful for what she had done.  A list of things went through her mind of what she could do to bring at least a flicker of the old Harry back.  She would have to wait until Tuesday to get the right answers, so for a week she was on her own, and not sure she would survive it.

“Ginny, did you see this article by Melvin?” asked Susan Bones, who worked with Ginny at the Daily Prophet.  “They weren’t going to give it to you to look over for some reason - well I guess for an obvious reason.  But anyway, take a look…”

Ginny sighed exasperatedly as she held out her hand for the paper.  “Susan, if this is another story about that serial killer…” 

Susan handed Ginny the parchment.  Ginny instantly scan the article, the only bit of work she had done all day.  However, her stomach filled with ice cubes and she covered her mouth that was fit to gasp.  The headline read, **_The Blood Line of the Great Harry Potter Has Ended_**.   The article then explained how the Dursleys had been murdered the night before.  It seemed to Ministry officials that only one was murdered by magic, and that had been Harry’s cousin.

Ginny shot up from her seat, tossing the article to the side, and running around her desk.  “Gin, hang on!  Where are you going?” Susan asked.

“I’m…still…not feeling well…” Ginny lied as she grabbed her cloak and ran out her office door.

Apparating outside her front door, she quickly ran into the house.  She tossed her cloak aside and bravely ran up stairs.  Fear was coursing through every ounce of her body.  She could only pray that any higher power had not forsaken her in such a way to have brought back a…murderer.

Knocking on Harry’s door seemed pointless considering that it never worked for her before.  So instead, she opened it once she reached it.  He was sitting up on the bed, transfixed on nothing in front of him.  His neck muscles didn’t even allow him to turn toward Ginny to acknowledge her intrusion into his space.

“Harry, I…” began Ginny, but stopped when she saw a pile of his clothes on the floor.  They seemed heavily stained with something red.  Ginny swallowed hard again as she slowly walked over to the pile.  She bent down and gingerly picked up his sweater.  The red stain splatter across it, she instantly recognized as dried blood.  Tears welled in her eyes immediately.  She had been forsaken.

“You…didn’t…Harry…” she said quietly to the sweater as tears streamed down her face.

Harry’s gazed stayed focused on nothing.  “I didn’t?” he asked blankly.

Ginny turned toward him.  “Harry, you couldn’t’ve…”

“They were nothing to me…I was nothing to them…” he said with the same eerie calmness, staring straight ahead.  “I was nothing to a lot of people…and a lot of people are…”

“You were everything to me!” Ginny interrupted.

Harry turned his vacant gaze toward her and she instantly wished he hadn’t.  His expressionless eyes seemed to freeze her insides.  “You’re still alive aren’t you?”

“GINNY?” called a familiar voice from downstairs.  Harry’s gazed remained on Ginny and hers on his, but his green eyes began to narrow recognizing the voice as well.  “Ginny, where are you?” called the male voice coming up the stairs.  “Maybe she’s down here.”

What sounded like two pairs of feet were walking toward the open door of Harry’s room.  Ginny quickly broke her gaze and stuffed the bloody clothes in a broken drawer.  Harry sprung from the bed with his wand in his hand but at his side.  Ginny ran to the door of the room as if to go out, but she was blocked by a figure standing in front of it.  “Ginny, I was calling you…and - bloody hell…” said Ron Weasley looking over his little sister’s shoulder.

“What is it, Ronald?” asked another familiar voice from behind him.  “I - OH MY GOD!” screamed Hermione, before she fainted to the floor.

Ginny covered her face as Ron knelt down to his wife, taking out his wand and reviving her.  “You were suppose to write me back before you came!” said Ginny in her hands.

Ron stood up, helping Hermione to steady herself.  “I don’t believe…  What kind of magic…  Is that some sort of an illusion charm, Ginny?  Tell me it is, then tell why it looks so bloody…real,” said Ron staring at what use to be his best friend.

“Harry,” said Hermione in a whisper, tears streaming down her face as she walked passed her husband and sister-in-law toward the figure in the room.

“Hermione, don’t, please,” said Ginny grabbing Hermione’s shoulder.  

Hermione gently removed Ginny’s hand from her shoulder, while never breaking eye contact with what use to be her best friend as well.  Slowly, she made her way to Harry who stared blankly back at her.  Hermione lifted her hand and slowly reached for his cheek.

“Hermione, no!” Ginny nearly shouted.

Harry’s eyes narrowed at the hand coming toward his face.  He lifted his hand quickly, but gingerly grabbed hers before it reached him.  “Don’t touch me…please,” he said a lot calmer and a lot lower than he had ever said it to Ginny.

Harry could hear a distant wailing as he looked into Hermione’s eyes.  A familiar crying that he had heard before and that he had recognized as hers.  However, she wasn’t making a sound as she watched him.  Then Harry could see into her eyes and into her mind.  Hermione crying by a grave, Harry’s grave, Ron holding her and crying into her hair.  And just as quickly, he heard the cries almost sound joyful.  

_I can’t believe you’re here!_ he heard her voice say, but her mouth hadn’t moved.  _I’ve missed you so much…_

Hermione sniffed hard, her expression not changing whatsoever.  Ignoring his statement, she released her hand from his, and threw her arms around his neck.  Ginny nearly tripped as she ran over to them and grabbed her shoulders, yanking her off of Harry.

Harry hadn’t lifted his arms as he was hugged, or when Ginny pulled Hermione off of him.  He simply kept his vacant expression.  

“Ginny?  What’s the problem with her hugging him?” asked Ron, now walking quickly over to the girls and Harry.  “He was - is our best mate after all!”

“Ron, please, just stay back.  Both of you,” Ginny said getting in front of Harry.

“What’s going on, Ginny?  How did…Harry…get here?” asked Hermione.

Ginny lowered her head.  She felt a cold breeze flow over her back.  She quickly lifted her head.  “Let’s go down stairs,” she said pushing Ron and Hermione around and toward the door.

“Brilliant,” said Ron, “we can discuss it over dinner.”

Hermione turned around noticing that Harry wasn’t walking with them.  “Come on, Harry,” she said smiling, walking back toward him, and reaching out her hand to grab his.

“NO!” said Ginny, grabbing Hermione and pulling her away.  “He’ll…come down…when he’s ready to.  Come on, Hermione,” she begged.

Ginny had successfully gotten her brother and Hermione out the bedroom door before closing it behind her.  Harry sat down on his bed, conflicted by his feelings.  His anger had subsided for some reason, but his range of emotions - anger, sadness, confusion - only allowed him to become empty inside.    

****

“How did this happen, Ginny?” asked Ron when they arrived downstairs.

Ginny glanced nervously toward the ceiling.  “I…” she began in a low tone as if she didn’t want someone to hear her, “brought him back.”

“From the dead?” asked Ron, looking at his sister incredulously.

“From where else, Ron?” snapped Ginny, still in a low tone.

“How?” asked Hermione, also watching her sister-in-law incredulously.

Ginny explained the entire story to them.  By the end, Hermione could barely remove her hand from her mouth.  “I love him, don’t you understand?  I couldn’t…  I wasn’t…  It wasn’t fair that he was gone.  It wasn’t fair that we didn’t get to have the life together that you two have.  He was mine!” Ginny said, crying into her arms on the table.

“But why are you so distraught, Ginny?  You have him.  He’s here,” asked Ron.  _My best mate is back_ , he smiled to himself.

The youngest Weasley only kept her head down.  “He…didn’t want to come back…did he?” asked Hermione, apprehensively, looking at ceiling.  Ginny’s loud wail gave her the answer.  Hermione exhaled heavily, internal pain evident on her face as well.

“He’s…so angry, Hermione.  I don’t know what to do!  It’s like…it’s not him!” Ginny sobbed loudly into her arms.  Hermione sat next to her and put her arms around her sister-in-law. 

“Well, this is ridiculous!  I’ll go talk some sense into him!” exclaimed Ron, getting up from his seat.

Ginny jumped out of Hermione’s arms and ran for her brother.  “NO, RON, NO!  He’s too…angry to discuss anything!  It’s too…dangerous right now to talk to him.”

“Too dangerous to talk to my best mate?  Ginny, you’ve gone mad, haven’t you?” exclaimed Ron, releasing himself from his sister.

Hermione quickly stood up.  “Ron, please.  Listen to Ginny, she maybe right.”  Ron stopped in his tracks at his wife’s words.  “Ginny, what do you mean by…dangerous?”

Ginny sniffed hard, making sure she stayed in front of her brother.  “He…  Well, I don’t know if he could before but…he can make things move without a wand.  Could he do that before?”

“Only when he was angry, but…oh,” said Ron looking up toward the ceiling, comprehension setting in.

“Is that all, Ginny?” asked Hermione.  

Ginny looked at her sister-in-law, and friend for many years, then lied to her face.  “Yeah.”

“Well, maybe he just needs time to get readjusted.  It’s only been a few days, hasn’t it?  But why did you write us, Ginny, and asked that we didn’t bring Harry with us?” asked Hermione.

The redhead swallowed at the lump in her throat and sniffed back her tears.  “I…well…I thought if you two came by, it would remind him of the love he had on earth.  Just seeing me wasn’t…enough, like I hoped.  I thought, if anything, you two could bring him out of his mood.  And I didn’t want my nephew here…not until Harry was in a better state of mind at least.  But I fear nothing is going to work.  He hates me for bringing him back.  He hates me…” Ginny began to sob again, covering her face in her tiny palms.

Hermione walked over to her friend.  “He can’t possibly hate you, Ginny.  There’s a little bit of Harry in there somewhere, I’m sure of it.  And that little bit is the part you need to find, help him to find.  Love conquers hate, Ginny.  Just remind him that he is loved.”

_I’ve tried_ , Ginny thought in Hermione’s arms.  _I’ll have to try harder, I suppose._

*************

Later that evening after Ron and Hermione left, Ginny dressed for bed.  Harry hadn’t come down, and Ginny did all she could to keep her brother and his wife from seeing their best friend one last time that evening.  She wracked her brain for ideas on what to do with Harry as she buttoned up her large pajama shirt.  She thought her love for him would be enough.

But perhaps it wasn’t enough to just tell him.

Swallowing the large lump of fear that nearly blocked her throat, she decided to go to his room.  Ginny knocked out of habit, and out of habit, she received no answer.  Trembling all over, she entered Harry’s room, only to find him sitting on the edge of the bed where she had left him hours ago.  He hadn’t moved when she entered.  The pads of her bare feet hadn’t made a sound, but she knew he knew she was there.  Cautiously, she walked over to his side of the bed facing the windows.  Harry had his head in his hands.  

As Ginny sat next to him, he lowered his hands, and she did all she could to keep herself from gasping, fearful he might attack her.  But tonight, she couldn’t be fearful of his actions.  She had to throw all caution to the wind if she wanted to make an attempt to show him how much she loved him.  Still trembling, she scooted closer to him.  From the side view of his expression, Harry didn’t look as angry as she had seen him before; he looked as if he were between emotions.  Ginny didn’t know if that was good or bad, but she couldn’t worry at the moment.  If he were to strike her dead right there, she was prepared and felt she deserved it.

“Harry…” she nearly whispered.  He didn’t respond, physically or verbally.  Ginny lifted her arm and slowly eased it around his back, knowing at any moment he would demand that she not touch him.  But he didn’t say a word.  Taking a quiet breath of relief, she watched him for a moment.  He looked tired and sad.  There was no sign of that seething anger she often experienced.  “Harry, I…” she stopped herself from apologizing again, knowing it would only make him mad.  Any words, she thought, would make him mad, so Ginny saw no other options.

She lifted her small hand to his chin, waiting for a moment to see if he would react.  When he didn’t, Ginny leaned over and kissed his temple.  Giving herself another second to see if, at least, his expression would change, she kissed his cheek.  Harry hadn’t moved until Ginny gingerly pulled his chin toward her.  She kissed the corner of his mouth, and then finally, after swallowing her rising fear again, his lips.  Looking into his eyes that wouldn’t look at her as she pulled away from his mouth, Ginny again gauged his reaction.  An inch away from his lips, Ginny watched him close his eyes, but do nothing more.  She placed her lips on his again and gently kissed him, hoping his mouth would respond.  There was an unmistakable salt like flavor on his dry lips.  Ginny recognized it instantly, having tasted her own tears every day since he died.  

She gently stroked his warm cheek as she kissed him, and nearly held her breath when she felt his lips beginning to kiss her back just as gently.  Although he kissed her back, he didn’t touch her.  Ginny slowly rubbed his shoulder as they kissed, and kept hold of his cheek as her kisses moved from his lips to his jaw line, then down to his ear and neck.

Harry’s breathe began to pick up it’s pace as he was kissed and Ginny was grateful for the reaction.  However, her body stiffened slightly when she suddenly felt his hand on her bare thigh and the other on the back of her head.  She quickly relaxed when she felt his hand gingerly stroking her leg, and was even elated when he maneuvered her head so that he may kiss her mouth again.  

Their kisses began to be more opened and sensual, and Ginny’s mind began to drift off into all things she had ever fantasized about well before they started dating.  She even let little moans of pleasure escape her while they kissed, unafraid of his reaction.  

“I love you,” she whispered for the only second they broke away from their growing kisses.  Ginny eased both arms around his neck as she kissed him again.  She enjoyed his hands suddenly gripping at her thigh, wanting to feel that all over her.  When his hand tangled itself deeply into her soft red hair, Ginny was in near ecstasy.  

But he sent chills down her spine, not of pleasure, but of fear, when she felt a sudden cold breeze flow out of him over her.  His kisses were no longer rough from passion, but rough from what seemed like anger.  And Ginny screamed when his fist clenched in her hair at the roots, as she felt hairs being ripped away from her scalp.

Ginny opened her wet eyes to the look on Harry’s face she had recently become accustomed too, that seething look of hatred, of anger, of contempt toward her.  Her eyes welled from the pain coming from her head, but she didn’t have time to cry as Harry released her hair and placed both of his hands on her waist under her nightshirt.  Ginny soon found herself on her back, and her legs on either side of Harry as he laid himself harshly on top of her, kissing her forcefully.  Now the tears coming out of Ginny’s closed eyes were not just for the pain in her head, but from fear.  She was inexperienced, and she knew he was too, but judging by how rough and uncaring he was being with her, she knew this would be more painful then the act promised to be any way for a woman’s first time.

As Harry’s hands grabbed at her body in the way she hadn’t fantasized about before, Ginny couldn’t help but stop him.  “Harry…please…” she whispered an inch from his panting lips.

Harry glared down at her, and Ginny shivered from his cold green eyes.  “Please…what?” he snarled.

Ginny swallowed hard.  “I…just…  It’s going to be…painful…for me.  I haven’t…ever…  It’s just…if we could slow down…a little…please?” she begged with her words and her eyes.

Harry’s eyes narrowed hatefully at her.  “How dare you make any requests of me?  I didn’t ask to be here, did I?  I didn’t ask to become whatever this is I’ve become…yet I have!  This is all your fault and you have the nerve to ask me to be…”

Ginny quickly put her hand on his cheek.  “I’m sorry, Harry,” she interrupted him.  “I’m - you’re right.  I have no right to ask anything of you.”  Harry glared at her and began to lift himself off her.  Ginny stopped him by grabbing his shoulders.  “NO, please!  I - I’m sorry!  I…don’t want you to stop, Harry!  Please?” 

Sitting up as best she could, she kissed him.  Ginny pulled on his shoulders with the hopes of lowering him back on top of her.  Instead, however, she was pushed back on bed by his hands on her arms.  He gazed angrily at her for a moment, before ripping opening her shirt and returning to his previous position on top of her.  Ginny had no intentions of letting this end.  Whatever were to come, were to come.  If this was the sacrificed she had to make to show him she loved him, she would.  Ginny tried to match his forceful kisses, but it proved difficult with no form of passion or love behind them on his end.  She winced and moaned in pain at how harsh and cold his hands were on her.

Seeing no way that Harry’s emotions and actions would change at the moment, Ginny still wanted it to happen, whatever it was, and get it over with.  She grabbed for the button on his jeans and unfastened them quickly.  And just as quickly, the brutal assault on her lips and body stopped.  Harry sat himself up on his arms and looked down at her red face, red bitten lips, blotchy bitten neck, brown eyes filled with fear, yet longing for him to stay near.  Ginny, unsure why he suddenly stopped, reached up to his cheek.  The moment her small hand touched his skin, Harry jumped out her arms and off the bed.  

“Harry, wait!  Please?” begged Ginny, sitting up on the bed watching him scrambling around the room.  As she finally stood up, closing her nightshirt, Harry darted out the room with his Invisibility Cloak and wand.  “Harry!” Ginny called again, chasing him down the hall, down her stairs and into her foyer.  But she was too late when he turned and Apparated out of the house.

***********

Harry found himself again walking a street he did not know.  This time he took care to put on his Invisibility Cloak, shielding himself from another situation of someone spotting a dead man.  However, as people walked by the invisible Harry, they often shuddered at a sudden cold breeze they would feel on the warm late summer evening.

The common feeling of anger was coursing through Harry’s body.  The sight of his two best friends from his other lifetime made him confused and conflicted, but then empty.  For a short while he was able to soften under Ginny’s touch.  He didn’t recognize that feeling anymore and it angered him that he allowed it to happen.

Harry closed his eyes as he walked for a moment seeing his mother and father trying to pull him back into their arms.  Then he saw himself again, standing in the cauldron with Ginny crouched down on the floor.  He wanted to be back with his parents, but they were now in another world, again, and he was on earth without them, again.  

Feeling as though he could barely breathe as fury tore at his every fiber, Harry turned on the spot and Apparated.  He found himself now in a familiar place.  A place he had visited the year before his final fight with Voldemort.  Harry now stood in front of the rumble of his parents’ home in Godric’s Hollow.  

The former home was just as he left it, and still under the Fidelius Charm, meaning the only other person who could find it would be Lupin.  But it didn’t look like Lupin had visited since he brought Harry there eleven years ago; actually it didn’t look like anyone had been there.  The home was laced in dust, cobwebs, and even evidence of animal intrusions.  It was as dark and dank as Grimmauld Place use to be, and it matched Harry mood perfectly.

He didn’t want to go back to Ginny’s house.  The more he looked at her, the angrier he became.  And although he had no remorse in hurting her the many times he had, he didn’t want to do to her what he had done to the Durselys.  It was easy for him to kill them, too easy.  His rage called for it in his head.  People dictating his life and not caring what he wanted was deserving of whatever he felt justice should be.  But something stopped him from doing it to her the many times he stood over as she slept; unaware that a wand was pointed at her chest; unaware of the number of times her tear-streaked pillow floated over her head ready to lower itself and have her meet his parents face to face.

He couldn’t go back there, but he didn’t know how long he could maintain here either, Godric’s Hollow, or on earth.  But what would he do back in his living hell?  And if he had to suffer, why shouldn’t others?  Why hadn’t others?  Especially those who deserved it.  Especially those who had made that world his living hell he was once grateful to get away from.

Harry began to run a list of names through his head.  Names of people who had hurt him, had destroyed some aspect of his life, and taken away his freedom.  Four of them were already gone, but he would see who remained and who would remain, until he received his freedom again.

***********

A tiny boat floated on tumultuous waters.  Its lone occupant was not visible to any one who may notice. However, going where it was headed, no one would notice until it got closer.  Harry’s body was numb, scraped and bruised from the angry fit he had inside his parents’ home.  Tearing at his own skin, knocking himself in walls and upturned furniture, Harry had yelled to the heavens for release until his throat was sore.  He wanted out of his body, out of his mind, out of the world he had done all he could for.  But the heavens didn’t answer his prayers, so now he sailed on a boat that could easily flip over, giving him the freedom he craved.

However, he made it to the destination undetected.  Placing an invisibility charm on the boat, Harry walked to the large metal doors of Azkaban prison.  There were many people inside that had taken freedom away from him when he was still alive.  Apparating wasn’t an option to get inside, so Harry walked around the prison finding no one outside, and no way in.  His anger was rising just as high and extreme as the waves around him.  Out of sheer frustration, he punched at a wall, causing an odd spark of light to appear and disappear.  Harry didn’t feel the wall or the blood now trickling off his knuckles, his body still numb.  However, he did notice that he had made a significant dent in the wall.  Seething still, he punched again and again and again, feeling nothing through his body, as random sparks flew from contact of his fist to the wall.  Soon, he created a hole that gave him a peek inside of the forsaken place.  Through that hole he saw long, pale white, but dirty and tattered hair.  He quickly recognized the form of Lucius Malfoy through the opening, and it was all Harry needed to see.  

Stepping back, he aimed his wand and hands at the large stone structure in front of him.  Throwing both hands forward, a sound rivaling a bomb struck the building, causing large amounts of rubble to come crashing down around him.  Suddenly, Harry felt trembling he knew wasn’t from the falling stones.  The water around him began to produce massive waves that went as high as thirty feet into the air.  However, Harry realized they weren’t just waves.  Although he was covered in his invisibility cloak, he was now facing large, sinister looking water monsters.  Their eyes were glistening and sold white.  Their tentacles were larger than even those of the Giant Squid at Hogwarts.  The green of their large moss covered teeth bared at Harry.  But he did not feel an ounce of fear in his body.  Instead, he simply turned back around to the wreckage he had created and dove inside as a tentacle came crashing to the ground where he stood.

The old, no longer pompous, no longer wealthy, no longer human looking Lucius Malfoy stood up against his cell wall as wild tentacles crashed down outside the wreckage.  Unable to see Harry, the former Death Eater began to weep freely at the sight of the massive creatures outside.  His frail, dry body slumped down to the ground in front of Harry.

Harry paused for a moment, listening for the sound of guards coming to check on the break in.  He wasn’t sure what was inside guarding Azkaban these days, but no one came.  Instead he heard something else.

“Father?” called a familiar voice from Harry’s past from down the hall in another cell.

Harry took a breath for a moment at the sound of the voice, and then looked back down at the pathetic form of Lucius Malfoy.  He knew the sheer shock of revealing himself to Lucius would be enough to kill the older man instantly.  But Harry sought more satisfaction from his death, so he had to exude patience for the moment.  With a swish of his wand, the cell opened.  Lucius jumped at the sound of the swinging door.

“Father, what is it?  What’s happened?” asked the voice again, along with a slew of other surly but frighten voices as well.

Harry walked over to Lucius.  Reaching down, still in his cloak, he grabbed the aged Death Eater by his long hair.  Lucius began to struggle but Harry stunned him momentarily, and dragged him into main hall.  The other prisoners seeing Lucius drugged by his hair by something invisible, all back up to the far walls of their cells.  Harry recognized many of them from the fighting of his last years, and he would take time to end each of their lives.  But for right now, he had something personal to take care of.

Reaching the cell of the person calling for Lucius, Harry found himself facing his former enemy, Draco Malfoy.  Draco’s hair was also the same as his father, though it didn’t seem as frail since Harry had quite a few lose chunks in his hand from the old man’s head.  Draco looked down at his stunned father, but Harry didn’t see any major concern on his former classmate’s face.  In fact, he looked content with the sight in front of him.  Hoping to change his smug expression, Harry unstunned Lucius Malfoy.  The Death Eater grabbed for the hand holding his hair, grabbing the end of Harry’s cloak and pulling until both he and his son gasped hard for air.  Harry smiled sinisterly at the fearful men around him.

“Po - Pott - Potter…” stuttered Draco, backing up to his cell wall.  “It – it can’t be…”

“It can indeed,” sneered Harry.

“But you’re…” said the old man on the floor.

Harry turned to him.  “Dead?  Not anymore,” he said through clenched teeth.  “You, on the other hand, will be shortly.  _Sectumsempra_!” shouted Harry, aiming his wand at the man on his knees.  Lucius twitched on the floor as blood rapidly expelled itself from his frail body.  Harry turned to Draco who was still backed against his cell wall.  “No, you must come watch,” said Harry, and with a wave of his hand, Draco came speeding toward the bars of his cell so fast, he hit his head and knocked himself out.  “Pity,” said Harry uncaringly.

Stepping over the dying Lucius, Harry made sure to visit every cell of prisoners he recognized as Death Eaters.  He opened the cells and allowed them to run, just for sport as he hit each one with the killing curse; taking time to beat Crabbe and Goyle to death with the dead bodies of their own fathers.  Prisoners he didn’t recognized and that he had accidentally opened their cells, he merely stunned and locked them back up; his score was to be settled with the Death Eaters alone.

As he walked through the mass of bodies of all those who supported Lord Voldemort, killed innocent people, and helped in destroying his life, Harry was set to leave.  But there was someone he hadn’t had the pleasure of killing; someone who deserved the fate more for his torment of Harry’s life for so many years.  At that moment, Harry didn’t care that Draco had not had the guts to kill Dumbledore, or that he hadn’t killed anyone during the war, only having turned himself in for protection against the Dark Lord.  He was on Harry’s list, and now he stood in front of Draco’s cell, his dead father lying face down in a pool of his pureblood in front of it.

Harry opened the cell door with his wand.  Draco, having gain consciousness stood up slowly as Harry slowly walked over to him.  “I’m next, I suppose,” he said calmly as if already having accepted his fate.  “So be it, Potter.  I won’t run, or fight you.  I thank you instead.  Thank you for killing that blasted git on the floor that dictated every move of my life.  And thank you for putting me out of my misery,” Draco said as he nodded his head to Harry, and closed his eyes.

Harry considered him for a moment, then raised his wand.

***********

Ginny stayed awake for two days.  She had not seen or heard from Harry and she was worried.  Missing work both those days, she still checked the news articles on what may have happened the night before.  The mass murders at Azkaban Prison had scared her tremendously, until she read further that only one prisoner had escape and is therefore the prime suspect in the deaths of his fellow inmates, Draco Malfoy.

****

Draco Malfoy hadn’t slept in two days.  Instead, he stayed inside a room only slightly larger than his cell at Azkaban, but with an even more intimidating guard outside his door some where in a house he had never been in before.  He received food and water, but no response from Harry when he asked questions.

“Why are you keeping me, Potter?” Draco shouted in frustration when Harry brought him his only meal of the day.  “Why don’t you just do me in now?”

Harry would often just look at him vacantly, then lock the bedroom door after he left.  Draco was under the Disapparation charm, and he had no wand in which to fight or save him.  Instead he stayed in fear of his mute, childhood enemy for the past few days, hoping he would wake up to see that it was only a dream or that Harry was finally standing over him willing to give him the freedom of death.

****************

“Ah, Miss Weasley, it has been to long,” said Professor McGonagall as Ginny entered her former headmaster’s office.  McGonagall had aged noticeably over the past ten years, but stayed the same stern disciplinarian Ginny remembered her to be at Hogwarts.

“Yes, Professor.  Thank you for granting me this opportunity to…” said Ginny.

“Speak to me?” said the kind voice of a portrait hanging amongst many of the other former headmasters of the school.  Albus Dumbledore smiled down at Ginny from his painting.  His always kind and twinkling blue eyes did nothing to calm the nerves she had tearing at her insides.  The shame she felt, she knew had to be obvious on her face.  “What is it, Miss Weasley?” he asked suddenly, noticing her expression. 

“Sir, I…” Ginny willed the tears in her eyes to hold as she glanced at McGonagall.

“Oh, I’m sorry.  I will be in the Great Hall if anyone comes calling,” said McGonagall getting to her feet and soon out the door.

“Now, Miss Weasley,” said Dumbledore, “what has gotten you in such a state?”

Ginny suppressed a sob as flashes of Harry appearing in the cauldron and the newspaper reports of the Durselys death played in her mind.  She squeezed her eyes shut and the tears fell, but she didn’t audibly sob.  “Sir, I’ve…gone and done something…I…”  Ginny threw herself into the nearest chair and her sobbing finally won out.

“Miss Weasley…Miss…Ginny, whatever it is, dear, I am sure it is not worth all…” began Dumbledore.

“I’ve brought Harry back, sir!” Ginny shouted through her tears, looking up at the portrait.

The old professor fell silent and remained in such a way for awhile as he watched the red haired woman wail into the arm of a chair.  “I…don’t understand, Ginny.  How…when…”

“I missed him so much, sir!  I waited so long to be with him…and then…then he…” Ginny’s sobs overtook her once more.  “When I was younger, I-I was so scared I’d…lose him forever…that I…made a…”

“Horcrux?” Dumbledore whispered almost to himself.  “Oh, Miss Weasley…”

“I know, sir,” she cried.  “I was just so…”

“So Harry Potter has returned?” asked the professor worriedly.  Ginny nodded slowly.  “How…is he?  Is he…”

“He is angry all the time, sir!  He…hates me!  He…”

“Did not wish to come back,” Dumbledore finished her statement.  Ginny shook her head rapidly.  “Oh, Miss Weasley…” said the old professor.

“What have I done, sir?  Why is he so…not like himself?  And he’s…” Ginny stopped herself before she could reveal anymore.  Luckily, Dumbledore had begun to interrupt her anyway.

“Ginny, Harry is…himself.  It is just that the part of his soul you extracted is the only part that is in him.  That part may not have been the Happy Harry, or Loving Harry, or Friendly, Understanding, Caring Harry you were hoping for.  We all have dark and, in some cases evil, sides to us.  It is possible that the bit you extracted of Harry’s soul was the angrier, unremorseful, unloving bit,” Dumbledore explained.  This did nothing to heighten Ginny’s spirits, so her tears were accompanied by wailing once more.  “And in addition to that, Miss Weasley, if Harry did not want to return, it may cause him to be a might disgruntle as well.  He was at peace.  A peace he fought hard to achieve and then suddenly…”

“I took it all away,” Ginny admitted begrudgingly.  “But I love him, sir!  Did I not deserve him? And him, me?” she cried.

“It was not your choice to make I’m afraid, Ginny.”

Ginny cried even heavier and Dumbledore allowed her too.  She knew he was right.  She had been selfish, her love for him blinding her judgment of what he really wanted or needed.  Ginny could only imagine what it had been like for him to be pulled out his mother’s arms.  Now she hated herself just as much as she felt he hated her.

“Where is Harry now, Ginny?” asked Dumbledore.

Ginny shook her head.  “I…don’t know, sir,” she said, fear settling in over the tears.  “He stormed out.  He was so angry.”  Every fiber in her body wanted to tell Dumbledore about what Harry had done with no remorse.  How he had killed his family.  Maybe Dumbledore would understand or know a way for her to cope.  But she couldn’t tell him.  She was ashamed enough as it was.

“This is not good, Miss Weasley.  In Harry’s state, he could be…dangerous.  Has he exhibited any powers that…”

“YES!” Ginny’s head shot up.  “He can move things without using a wand.  It’s like when he’s really angry he can move furniture…”

“And people?” asked Dumbledore.  Ginny could see the worry in his blue eyes.

“Yes…sir.  He threw me out of a room…” Ginny mumbled, lowering her head.

“I see,” said Dumbledore nearly mumbling as well.  “This is most unfortunate, Ginny.  You see, when Voldemort tried to kill Harry as a baby, he had unintentionally transferred some of his powers to him.  When Harry faced Voldemort for the last time, he more than likely transferred more powers to him.”

“Not to mention his temper,” Ginny said under his breath.

“Temper?  No, Miss Weasley.  You should know that Harry’s temper was always short, volatile even.  He had control over himself because…well, he was more balanced then.  Now, he only possesses one part of his soul.  That angry, resentful, revengeful part that he always restrained due to the love he was able to express before.”

Ginny raised her head once more remembering her feeble attempt to show Harry love recently.  “Love, sir?  Hermione suggested I try to show him…love.  It made him even angrier it seemed.  Can’t love…save him, sir?  Hadn’t you always told him that?  Maybe this time it can as well!” she hoped with all her heart.

As he eyed her sadly and shook his head slowly, Ginny’s heart didn’t need to him go on any further.  She lowered her redhead for the finally blow.  “I am sorry to say, Ginny, love will not help him this time.  I am afraid…nothing can.”

************

Harry stood outside the home of Cornelius Fudge, former Minister of Magic.  The guard stationed outside the former Minister’s home, was still lying against the house, cursed unconscious.  The last thing the guard had seen was Draco Malfoy running backwards towards him, before he was suddenly hit with a yellow light out of no where.

Using his wand to clean splats of blood of his clothing and face, the blood of Cornelius Fudge, who was enduring his last minute on earth bleeding to death inside his home, Harry felt lighter under the Invisibility Cloak.  He did however, opt to leave the splats of blood on the whimpering mess of Draco Malfoy who was standing a ways away from Harry, although his mind wished he wasn’t.  There were no ropes binding the two men, only an Unforgivable curse.   Before they left Godric’s Hollow, Harry walked into Draco’s room, wand aimed toward his head.  Draco ranted and raged, begging Harry to administer an Unforgivable, putting him out of his misery.  However, Draco was surprised and even stricken with fear when the Unforgivable Harry uttered was the Imperious curse.  Stranger still, Harry lowered his wand to Draco’s legs, instead of his mind in which to control when the red light erupted from Harry’s wand.  Now Draco marked Harry’s steps from ten feet away, seemingly on his own accord to any outsider, and witnessed the murder the Boy Hero just committed.  

Draco had watched Harry using a curse on the Minister that Harry had used on him in their sixth year.  He watched the Minister’s face turned from rage at the sight of Draco, to one enduring cardiac arrest when Harry revealed himself before sending the fatal blow.

Soon, the two Apparated, and Draco found himself in front of a house he hadn’t seen before.  He didn’t see Harry, but when he suddenly began walking, he knew he was still under the curse.  “Potter!” Draco sneered, but Harry ignored him as usual.  It had been several days since he had been kidnapped from Azkaban, and Harry had allowed him to read all the Prophets that had come out since, calling for Draco’s very head.  Harry also had failed to talk to Draco although he demanded him to speak daily.

“Damn it, Potter!” Draco’s voice cracked with anger and fear, “answer me will you?  Why are you doing this?  You’re to goody bloody two-shoes to be so…heartless!”

“Soulless,” muttered Harry.

Draco shook his head, shocked that he had actually heard Harry’s voice.  “Potter…Potter,” he now pleaded, “listen to me…stop this…please…”  Draco stopped his words abruptly as his walking stopped abruptly.  He knew he hadn’t stopped on his own, so that must have meant that Harry had under the cloak.

“One more word from you, Draco, and I’ll put a permanent silencing charm on you!” Harry sneered back.

“Do it, Potter!  Please take me out of my misery instead of making me watch this instead of someone spotting me and taking me back to Azkaban for what you’re doing!” he begged pointlessly it would seem.  “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?  WHY…”   But Draco’s words were stopped, although his mouth continued to move until he realized there was no sound coming from it.

Harry stowed away his wand.  His anger, the common emotion he felt, was boiling up inside him.  Walking to Dolores Umbridge’s front door, he blasted it opened with a flicker of his hand.  He knew she was home, because he had watched her patterns for several days, as he had Fudge to know when his wife would not be home.  He had begun watching quite a few people’s patterns of daily living.

“What is Merlin’s name…” yelled Umbridge coming from the kitchen in a hot pink dressing gown, a pink saucer and tea cup in her hand.  At first sight all she saw was a shaken Draco Malfoy, mouthing words at her and flinging his arms at her as if telling her to run.  

“Draco…Malfoy…” were her last words.  

Suddenly, the plates of cute little kittens came off her walls, flying at her from every angle.  As they flew, they broke in two, causing jagged, pointy edges.  Harry lowered his cloak.  When she screamed at the sight of him, the plates in flight aimed their jagged ends at her.  Then all at once, they entered her body from her pink bow on her head to her toad-like feet.  Blood splattered over Harry’s satisfied smile as he watched her fall to the ground.

Justice had been served once more for Harry.  A break in sanity had been served once more for Draco as he fell to the floor and covered his blood-stained face.

*******

Back in Godric’s Hollow, Harry threw Draco into his room and a towel in his face to clean up the massive amount of blood that had splattered on him.  Draco had no wand in which to clean himself, although he had a bathroom connected to his room.  Instead, however, he slide down into the corner of the bedroom and cried in his new cell as the door magically locked after Harry closed it.

*********** 


	3. Blissful Emptiness

**Blissful Emptiness**

There was a buzz in the wizarding world about the recent major murders.  The former Minister of Magic had been murdered in his home, and his befuddled guard claimed to see Draco Malfoy ‘running away toward the house’.  Albeit ludicrous as the explanation was, and how disoriented the guard seemed to be, the press and Ministry accepted it as truth.  The murder of Dolores Umbridge was not linked to Draco Malfoy, although many speculated that he may have had something to do with it, or possibly the serial killer that the Aurors still hadn’t caught because of how gruesome the murder had been.

Ginny, however, sat in her office knowing the truth behind the murders.  She too could only speculate, but felt in her heart that it was the one who held her heart behind the murders.  Ginny thought she deserved to be sent to Azkaban or at least find her murderous love, and allow him to do what she dreamed he would every night since he left her home; murder her.

“Gin,” called Susan from Ginny’s office door, “have you read that Skeeter article yet?  That woman is merciless when she wants something done!  Bitch,” Susan mumbled under her breath.

Ginny shook herself out of her reverie.  “No…I haven’t yet.  I’ll give it a once over shortly.”  Ginny imagined Rita Skeeter and her long polished claws and perfect curls.  She remembered how much Harry had loathed her for a short time and how…  

Suddenly, Ginny grabbed a piece of parchment off her desk and began scribbling names.

The Durselys; Fudge; Umbridge… Then Ginny thought hard, remembering the tormented soul she loved and who he had been tormented by.  Death Eaters; Draco Malfoy…  Scrimegour… She gasped to herself as she read the name she had just written, knowing she had found the next victim.

**********

Days had gone by of Draco’s seclusion in his room.  He received his meals, but no communication other then the _Daily Prophet_ with the angry headlines that included his name.  And now he was sure he was going mad.  Azkaban hadn’t done the job he had hoped in turning him so blindly insane, he wouldn’t have to deal with his reality.  Draco was actually set to be released in a month before he had broken out - kidnapped out - of the wizarding prison actually, with no plans of where to go.  But never did he think he would end up here, with Harry, and having witnessed ruthless, gruesome murders.  Murders that began to replay in his dreams when he was blessed with fitful moments of sleep.

Fed up, Draco had devised a plan to escape either the house or his life.  He knew Harry was very capable of killing him at any moment, but since he wouldn’t, that was unbearable for the Slytherin.  He knew he would have to force Harry’s hand.  

He left the lights out in his room that evening.  Harry hadn’t brought him any food during the day time, having been gone all day, so Draco knew this would be a night time feeding.  Staying crouched by the door, he listened for his former school enemy’s feet.  Once they had gotten closer, the door knob began to turn.  As the door swung opened, Draco leaped on the dark figure of Harry and pushed him into the ground.  The men grappled on the floor.  Blow after blow connected to both faces, both stomachs, both rib cages, and both began to taste Draco’s blood.  Suddenly, the youngest Malfoy felt himself levitating as he scratched wildly at Harry’s face and body.

“Put me down, you son of bitch!” Draco shouted.  “Fight me if you want, torture me to death, or let me be!”  Instantly, Draco went flying through the stale air of his bedroom, landing harshly on the floor.  He felt a hand around his neck even though he could still see the dark figure was clear across the room.  He didn’t struggle although he choked and coughed as he was now being lifted up the wall by the invisible hand.  

_That’s right…that’s right…do it…_ Harry could hear Draco say in his mind.  

As the air to Draco’s brain began to shorten, a smile of gratitude danced across his pale, chapped-from-crying lips.  Eager now to embrace his ultimate freedom, Draco helped by holding what little breath he had left.  Suddenly, his dreams were shattered when he crumpled to the floor, very much alive.  Realizing he hadn’t gone to the other side, Draco coughed as he pounded the floor, drowning out any sound of Harry’s feet walking toward him.  “WHY?” he shouted as best his could with his sore throat.  “Why?” he whimpered, now realizing that Harry’s figure was over him.

Harry stood over the pathetic form of Draco Malfoy, waiting, wanting to fight again but knowing it wasn’t coming tonight.  “You’ll serve your purpose someday,” Harry said in his usual lifeless tone although anger coursed through his bit of soul.  With that, he left Draco in a wailing mess on the floor as he walked out the room and closed the door.

*************

The next morning, Draco watched the door of his cell.  He hadn’t moved a muscle from where Harry had let him fall that night, and he was sure he was now going completely insane.  Pulling and tugging at his hair, mumbling to himself was all Draco did through the night.  He knew he was suffering a worst fate than Azkaban could have ever provided.  Suddenly, the door opened.  Expecting to see Harry coming in with a tray of bread or some medial form of sustenance, Draco was shocked to see an empty hallway.  Tempted to run straight for it, he told himself better and did not move.  But the door stayed opened with no figure in its entrance for nearly twenty minutes as Draco kept watch of it.  He had access to his own bathroom, so he knew that it wasn’t a bathroom break.  He never ate in any other part of the house, besides his room.  And he had only seen the foyer of the house before Harry would often Side-Along Apparate him upstairs to his room.

Plucking up the courage after nearly an hour’s wait, Draco walked to the opened door.  Listening for the sound of footsteps, breathing or anything, he slowly peered around the threshold.  There was a slight pop and Draco jumped a foot in the air as Harry appeared in front of him.  “SHIT!” screamed Draco and quickly walked backward into his room, tripping and falling to the floor.

Harry’s blank expression followed him inside.  “Thought you’d pluck up the courage ages ago to leave,” he said with little expression.

Draco rubbed his sore arm he had just landed on and glared up at the Boy Hero.  “Leave?  That’s a joke, isn’t it?  You wouldn’t dare let me…” snapped Draco, straining to stand up.

Harry turned side ways in the door way, and waved his hand toward the opened, unblocked door.  “You can leave if you wish,” he offered.

Draco eyed Harry suspiciously, trying to hide the fear he had behind his silver gaze.  He didn’t move for a moment, waiting to see if his captor would do something indicating that it was a trick.  After watching Harry’s cold green eyes watch him, Draco slowly walked forward.  He held his breath when he got near Harry, feeling a cold breeze that seemed to flow off his body.  The hallway was one he hadn’t seen entirely before, but he didn’t see it then either for he was to shock to register what was around him.  Noticing only the stairs, he began to walk quickly toward them, but held his breath again when he heard Harry’s footsteps following closely behind.  Draco closed his eyes and took the stairs anyway.  

_Maybe this will be the way he’ll kill me.  Push me down the stairs, breaking my neck and making it seem an accident,_ he thought, he hoped, he prayed.

“I have no intention of pushing you down the stairs, Malfoy.  If I wanted to kill you, I’d face you.  Eager to see the lights leave your eyes,” said Harry casually as he and Draco took the stairs together.

Draco shuddered.  “Hang on, how did you know what I was thinking?” he asked, not wanting to turn around now that he saw the front door ahead.  

For the first time since Harry’s returned to earth, he snorted coolly.  The tiniest hint of laughter sent chills down Draco’s spine.  Harry didn’t answer his question.

Draco didn’t care now.  He was a foot away from his freedom - not the freedom he wanted, but freedom from the fear he lived with and images of death he’d witnessed over the past few weeks.  But it seemed too easy.  It had to be a trick.  As he turned the knob, he realized it was.

“By the way Draco, before you go,” began Harry casually.  

Draco stopped cold, eyes shut tight, waiting, hoping that at least it would only be the killing curse and not something worse.  The sooner the better for him.  

“I was just wondering where you would be going?  I’m sure you’ve read the Prophet.  I always make sure to give you a copy everyday.  Nice pictures they have of you, calling for your head.  Seems you’ve been committing unspeakable acts of murder…”

Draco listened to Harry.  He knew the headlines; he understood what Harry was doing.  Had it been the Slytherin pre-Azkaban, he’d of done the same to a prisoner.  Draco knew if he walked out the door and Apparated anywhere, if he could, he would be caught at first sight and chucked back into Azkaban to suffer the worse fate…life.  He fought with himself internally as he held the door slightly opened.  What would be worse?  At least he knew that at some point, Harry may grant him his wish and kill him.  

Draco closed the door.

“Staying, are we?” Harry asked, blankly.

Draco turned to him.  “Where am I to go?  You set this up.  You made it seem as though I was killing all those people so that I would stay in hiding with you.  Clever,” the Malfoy heir admitted to the ground.

“Terribly,” said Harry with a cool smirk.  “Don’t act like you’ve never seen death before, Malfoy.  I know you prefer it for people who don’t deserve it.  But there are those who do,” he said so expressionlessly, Draco shuddered again.

The Slytherin shook his head toward the ground, wishing the images of Umbridge’s bloody, twitching body would shake right out of his ear.  “I…never saw death.  I…watched Dumbledore die, but that was it.  Not until you broke into Azkaban.  Not until you made me watch…”

Harry scanned Draco’s mind.  He saw him trembling as he watched Dumbledore die.  He looked for other images in his mind to confirm that he was lying, but Harry saw none.  If Harry had any range of emotion other then confusion, anger and sadness, he may have felt disappointed.

“I suppose you should learn to identify when someone needs to die…besides your self,” said Harry blankly.  He raised his wand, and Draco held his breath as if expecting to be hit.  Instead, there was the unmistakable sound of locks clinking on the door behind him.

Draco exhaled in disappointment and Harry walked away in what would be.

****************

Ginny’s suspicions and fear lead her to keeping watch of a house she had never been to before, nor having spoken to the resident.  The resident was a former Auror and well guarded Minister of Magic, but this meant nothing to Ginny.  She was sure he was Harry’s next target, remembering how much Harry detested the man before he died.  Feeling she had no choice but to keep watch of the Minister, because she couldn’t exactly tell him that Harry Potter had returned from the dead, was more than likely killing various people he hated in his former life, and that the Minister was one of Harry least favorite people; Ginny felt trapped because of her own selfishness.

The tiny framed red head, barely worked for a week.  Only going in for a few hours before heading out to her incognito watch of the Minister’s house.  She had tried several things to disguise herself or keep hidden.  She transfigured part of her anatomy to look like someone else so that she may walked by the house on several occasions during a day as a different person.  A tiny bush across the lane from Scrimegour’s house looked discrete but behind it was a chair, table and Ginny hidden by an illusion charm.

Ginny went unnoticed by the Minister as she watched the house.  Luckily for her, she went unnoticed by another person watching the house as well.

**********

Tonight someone else’s house was being watched.  It had been watched on and off for the past week.  The pattern of the occupant was now imbedded in Harry’s memory, and tonight he would strike.  

A raven haired, former Ravenclaw beauty walked out the side door of her home, in which she lived alone.  As she took to a walk, dressed for some sort of festive occasion, she headed down her drive way.  Being a half-blood, she owned a car, but tonight it looked as if she was fit to Apparate away to some unknown location.  Pulling her short cloak over her shoulder, she closed her eyes, set to turn on her spot.  Before she could however, she heard a crackle behind her.  Cho Chang opened her eyes and only saw the fence to her neighbor’s house, but she could feel a presence.  Disturbed by the headlines of the serial wizard killer on the loose, she retrieved her wand and held it close to her body so as not to be obvious.

Harry stood covered in his Invisibility Cloak.  Tonight he had opted to leave Draco at home.  He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want him with him to witness this.  This was personal for Harry.  She had hurt him in a different way then everyone else, in his heart.  Harry saw her pull out her wand and try to hide it up against her lean body.  He could hear her telling herself comforting things in her mind, as well as specific ways to attack if she had to.  His anger made him sneer at her under his cloak, but as the suspicious look on her worried face changed to relief, Harry knew he had to act fast or he’d have to wait for her to get back.  And Harry didn’t want to kill the man he had seen her come home with on occasion…well, not tonight he didn’t want to kill him.

Cho stowed her wand away and closed her eyes again.  Suddenly, she yelped as she was pushed back against the wall of her house.  Her high heels sunk into the trail of grass along side her home.  She made to scream to again, but felt an invisible hand covered in a material over her mouth.  Fear and sadness in her eyes, Cho didn’t cry.  She tried grabbing for her wand, but accidentally got caught in the material covering the front of her body, and she pulled it down revealing her assailant’s head.

“Harry!” she screamed, but it was muffled by the heavy hand still on her mouth.  Harry stared into her dark eyes.  _I don’t believe it!  It can’t be!  This is…some horrible trick!_ He could hear her screaming in her mind.  

“It’s no trick, Cho,” Harry sneered.  “It’s really me!”  His anger was immense, coursing through his veins like some unyielding race car.

Cho’s eyes final became wet.  “How…” she said, her voice still muffled, but her body stopped struggling.

Harry lowered his hand from her mouth.  It wouldn’t matter if she screamed now; he would be gone before they found her lifeless body in the driveway.  But to his surprise, she didn’t scream.  Her wet, sad eyes stayed focused on his angry ones glaring back at her.  

“My God…” was all she could muster.  Harry narrowed his eyes at her; he could hear the voices inside her head again.  _Those eyes, outside of the anger, look so much like him.  I wish it was him.  I wish…_ She sounded desperate in her thoughts.

“I told you, it is me!” Harry nearly snarled.  He wasn’t even going to bother to raise his wand to administer the final blow; he could do it with just his hand.  He wouldn’t touch her; he didn’t have to, because his anger was so strong at the moment that he could perform the curse easily.  “Don’t touch me!” he said in a low tone as Cho lifted her hand toward his cheek.  Harry grabbed her wrist and held it tightly, but Cho didn’t wince from his force, she just stayed focused on his eyes, not saying a word.

Fear had left Cho’s wet eyes ages ago as the two remained silent for several minutes.  She almost looked as though she had hope inside her gaze.  Cho lifted her other hand slowly, not having been fazed by Harry’s warning or how harshly he was holding her other wrist.  Harry watched her hand rise, wondering why he wasn’t seeing the fear in her eyes that he was able to instill in the others before he killed them.  Her soft hand made contact with his cheek and Harry’s eyes glared even harsher at her.  She brushed her thumb gently across it, ignoring the fury in his eyes.  Suddenly, to Harry’s surprise, she leaned forward and softly kissed his lips.  Harry’s lips didn’t respond, but his eyes flicked from anger to confusion and he backed his head away.

“It is you,” Cho nearly whispered, licking her lips as if to verify him by his taste alone.  “But you’re…”

“Doesn’t…matter,” Harry said blankly.  “I…”

“Oh Harry…” Cho said quietly, sadness evident in her eyes and in her voice.  She bravely put her arms around his neck and hugged him.

Harry’s anger was fighting with the confusion, not only of her actions, but his.  It would have been simple to kill her moments ago, but he hadn’t yet.  And just as he was trying to sort out his thoughts as she hugged him, his mind was bombarded with everything inside of hers.  He could see her crying all alone by his grave, but not just his fresh grave.  Harry could see images of what looked like her through years, aging flawlessly, but aging nonetheless.  He could see her crying alone in a young girl’s room, then in a house.  Then he could hear her voice.  _My God, it’s you.  I missed you so much.  I can’t believe it’s you._   She squeezed him tighter around the neck.

Harry, unable to take the images or to understand what was happening inside him, grabbed her upper arms and pulled her off his neck.  A tear had finally escaped her eye as she stared up at him with a slight smile on her face, although his glare told her he was feeling the opposite.  The Gryffindor knew it was now or never, he raised a hand to just outside her chest, getting ready to end her crying forever. 

But to his suprise, Cho grabbed his hand and placed it on heart.  Her other eye released a tear as she stared at him.  “I…never let you go, Harry.  You’ve always been in here,” she said indicating where his hand rested.  He could feel her heart pounding under his hand.  He could stop that in a second.

Instead, Harry realized he was being dragged into a side door.  He suddenly found himself inside Cho’s house.  Having only peeked in her windows before, it was odd to be inside her home.  He was taken to the living room and left standing there as she headed into another room.  Harry had lost some level of control over the situation.  How did he end up in there when he was content with leaving her dead in the driveway? 

Cho returned with two bottles of butterbeer.  “Bit of an odd thing to give a dead man, I suppose,” she tried to joke, but neither of them laughed.  They stood quietly as Cho sipped her bottle.   Harry simply stared at her blankly for several moments.  “Harry…?”

“Don’t ask me again how it is I’m here, Cho,” he warned.

Cho’s hope-filled eyes returned as she strode even closer to him.  “I…” she began timidly, “don’t have to know, I suppose.  I was just thinking…why are you back?”  Harry simply stared at her again, not moving a muscle or batting an eyelid.  “I mean don’t get me wrong, Harry, my heart was shattered when you died - well before you died - but the only solace I had in your death was that I knew you were at peace.  You sacrificed yourself for everyone.  I loved you more in death, if possible, for what you had done than I did when you were alive.  You deserved your peace, Harry.”

Harry continued to stare at her, unaware of what to say to this statement.  His anger had sufficiently subsided for a moment.  The conflicting feelings he felt after Hermione had touched him seemed back.  Then there was nothing, no emotion at all.  It felt very freeing to Harry.  As he reveled in this clear mind, he hadn’t noticed that Cho had stepped even closer to him.

“I always told myself if I had a second chance with you, Harry, I wouldn’t waste it,” she said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen between them.  “Then you…well…my heart stayed shattered for so many years.  I’ve only recently allowed myself to…date for a long period of time.”  Harry knew about the gentlemen that frequented her home.  A man name Joseph Lee.  Harry didn’t know him, but the more he saw him at the house, the more he wanted to add him to bottom of his list.

However, none of what Cho said matter, for it would be her last words, Harry thought, trying to will himself back into his reason for being there.  And he was right, because after her final word, she kissed him again.  This time though it wasn’t the innocent peck she had given him outside, or when they were much younger in the Room of Requirements.  

And to further Harry’s confusion, he was slowly kissing her back.

*****

Harry sat up abruptly.  A cool breezed chilled the sweat on the exposed parts of his body.  He trembled, but not from being cold.  Not only was it the mixture of the natural climax to the activity he and Cho had just been engaging in, the void of emotion the intimacy had allowed him, which he greatly appreciated, but the level of intimacy allowing him even further into her mind, her memories, and her emotions, had become very overwhelming for him.  It felt as though her emotions were evading his very being.  Lacking in range of emotions himself, he couldn’t place them anywhere, and the clear mind and emptiness he had been granted was slowly fading away.  

Harry tried blocking out her memories of her sadness after his death, along with the joy and hope she seemed to feel in his arms, by being relentless in their sexual play.  Never having had sex in his previous life, he didn’t quite know what to do when his and Cho’s kissing progressed in her living room.  Not wavering any control over the situation, and keeping his wand on the bed just in case he decided to use it, he allowed her to show him what to do.  Once Harry had gotten the hang of it, his mind became very clear as his body seemed to go into automatic.  Cho’s sad but hopeful eyes stayed focused on him as best she could, and this was where Harry’s clear mind became bombarded with everything in her mind.  He closed his eyes, his body moving vigorously on and in her, but she hadn’t stopped him.  Cho’s kept up with him with no complaints, still kissing him gently and touching his face gingerly.

Harry now sat trembling, rubbing the sweat of his forehead into his hair, trying desperately to get the images he had seen in her mind out of his own.  Cho lay beside him, catching her breathe.  Harry didn’t know what to do with everything he was feeling, everything he had just experienced.  He wanted that brief moment of emptiness back, that clear mind he was granted by her, but he knew what she felt was too strong and he’d be bombarded again.

Cho sat up slowly and painfully.  She rested her chin on his bare shoulder, still trying to compose herself.  “Don’t touch me,” Harry said under his breathe, as he felt her fingers gently touch the hair on the back of his head.

Cho let her hand slid down his sweaty back and rest on her bed.  “Bit late for that, isn’t it?” she said with a smile, unphased by his comment.

Harry felt the irritation rising again.  He didn’t want it, but he knew he needed it to do what he came to do.  He had already told himself when they began that he would have no remorse leaving her sexed and lifeless in her own bed.  Now was the time to make it happen.  Harry raised his hand, not needing his wand as the anger began to take more control.  It hovered just in front of her chest again, waiting to administer the curse.  Cho kissed his shoulder and Harry’s hand paused, but didn’t lower.  He opened his hand further and again was set to do what he intended when suddenly Cho took it into her own, and softly kissed his fingers.  Harry looked into her pretty face and she smiled at him.  He watched her place his dangerous hand on her cheek, then watched as she put her hand on his.  She kissed him again, and again he allowed her to.  Closing his mind to her as best he could, Harry allowed her to lay him back on the bed and take control.

****

Standing in Cho’s bedroom, Harry pulled on his last bit of clothing.  He had achieved his goal: his mind was clear, and he felt no form of anger, confusion, or sadness.  Once his shirt was back on, he walked over to the bed to retrieve his wand.  Cho sat up wrapped in her sheet, watching him dress.  As he reached for his wand from under a pillow, she grabbed his hand.  

“Harry, I…”  She looked rather shy, which was odd considering what they had been doing for most of the night.  “I…can only imagine what you think of me…now.”  Harry didn’t think or feel anything, and he was grateful.  Cho’s eyes looked downward and finally a thought came to his mind.  He had to do it now.  “I…was just wondering…” she continued, “if - or when - I could…see you again?” Cho asked the bed, unaware of the fact that her fate was being decided in the mind of the person’s hand she was now gently squeezing.

Harry released his hand from hers and stepped back.  Cho’s sad eyes looked up at him, hopefully.  “No,” he said simply.  Cho’s eyes looked back down at her bed.

“I…” she began sadly.  “I’m sorry I…was so forward this evening…its just…”

Harry looked down at her with a vacant expression on his face.  He thought the anger would rise soon, but it hadn’t.  He would have to use his wand to kill her.  “It doesn’t matter, Cho,” he said blankly, and she looked back up at him with hope in her eyes again.

“W-why?” she asked.

Harry raised his wand and Cho watched the tip of it point directly at her.  However, no fear read on her face as she just aimed her sad eyes back at Harry’s blank ones.  He paused again, tittering on the edge of playing God with this woman’s life.  His mind was too clear; he almost wanted the anger to rise again to give him the strength to do it.  But it never came.  

“Obliviate Minor!” he said, and a white light hit Cho in face and she fell back on her bed.  Harry watched her form for a moment, confusion now entering his mind, wondering why he was now watching her do nothing more than sleep, with her days events wiped from her memory.  

However, Cho had jogged Harry’s memory, and he knew whom he should have visited instead that night.  And before he returned to his parents’ home, he did.

******************

Although Draco was free to roam the house now with no intentions of going outside, not only because the doors and windows were magically sealed, but because the Prophet now stated that he had gone in ranks with the serial wizard killer that was still roaming free.  “I have,” said Draco to himself, reading the latest Prophet on the broken couch of Harry’s parents living room.  “Gone in ranks with a dead man, I have!”

“You wouldn’t be talking about me, would you?” asked Harry coldly as he descended his stairs.

Draco jumped slightly on the couch at the sound of Harry’s voice, though he kept a smug expression.  “I, um, I mean, yeah,” he built of the courage to say.  “Prophet’s saying I’ve gone in ranks with a murderer.  I’m sure they mean no one else but you.”

“Perhaps,” said Harry, nonchalantly.  “Pity, they have a face to put to the murders; that being yours.”  Harry walked into the living room and Draco became very nervous.

“Where…where were you last night?  Had enough pity on me not to make me watch another brutal…”

Harry narrowed his eyes at his prisoner.  “Where I was is none of your business,” he interrupted.  The cold breeze that flowed off of him to Draco, shut Draco’s mouth instantly.  “Besides,” Harry said after a moment, “that serial killer’s been at it, since well before I…returned.”

Draco watched Harry lower his head, his expression changing from angry to blank.  “How…did you…return, Potter?” Draco asked meekly, scared now that he crossed a line.  He lowered his own head as he felt Harry’s eyes boring into him now, yet his curiosity was getting the best of him for quite some time, and he needed to know.  However, Harry didn’t respond.  The dank and dusty living room went silent.  Draco opened his mouth, then closed it, then resolved to open it again.  “I…mean, where’s Weasley and the Mud - I mean, Granger?  Thought they were your best mates?  Surprise I haven’t seen them.  Maybe because you know they would stop you from doing - hang on,” Draco said raising his head and narrowing his gray eyes on Harry in shock and fear.  “Have you…  Are they…  Did you kill them too, Potter?” Draco asked, rising slowly from his seat.

Harry’s green cold eyes bored in Draco’s for several moments.  Suddenly, he turned on his heels and walked toward the worn and tattered stairs.  Draco hadn’t said anything further as Harry walked away and remained glued to his spot.  When Harry’s foot touched the first step, he paused and slowly turned to his prisoner.  “No,” he said quietly, but with obvious disdain in his voice.  “They were…my friends…”

“And now…?  What, don’t they know you’re back?” Draco plucked up the courage to probe further.  “And Weasley’s sister…uh, Ginny…”  Harry twitched slightly at sound of her name.  “She was…your girlfriend,” Draco said, hesitating momentarily at Harry’s reaction.  “You couldn’t have…killed her too, could you’ve?”

“LOOK,” Harry shouted suddenly, “it’s none of your business what’s happened to them!  My…friends,” Harry said with disgust, “are…none of your concern!”  With that, Harry stormed upstairs.

“Your friends…are still alive…” Draco whispered to himself after he heard an upstairs door slam.

***********

Harry stood in his room; a newly nearly destroyed room.  This was not uncommon for the former Gryffindor.  When his anger raged in his mind, through his body, everything around him began to move.  Using his wand, his mind, or simply his hands, he tossed and smashed many items in his room.  The bulk of his day that day was in taking care to dismantle every bit of furniture he had in that confined space.  Draco questioning him about Ron and Hermione made him angry.  The thought of Ginny made him even angrier.  The solace of emptiness he felt briefly from being intimate with Cho seemed a distant and desired memory.  Draco had taken that away from him.  So tonight was set for revenge.

That evening, Draco had the pleasure of watching many of his school pals lose their lives at Harry’s hands.  Covered in his Invisibility Cloak, and having Draco’s body under the Imperious curse, marking his steps ten feet behind, Harry tortured and destroyed Theodore Nott Jr, Blaise Zabini, Marcus Flint, and Millicent Bulstrode right in front of a whimpering Draco.  Blood covered Draco face when Harry chose less civilized ways to destroy the former Slytherins, except for the tear-streaked stains down the prisoner’s cheeks.

Now they stood in a foyer of a home neither had ever been in before.  Draco shook violently, grabbing his hair in frustration, wiping the blood from his face, and weeping.  There was the sound of a woman’s voice humming a tune in the kitchen as the two strode into her living room.  “What’s the matter, Draco?” asked Harry coolly from under his cloak.  “Thought you were so concerned about friends.  Thought I’d bring you to yours.  I daresay it’s been some time since you’ve seen them.  Too bad their last vision was of your cowardly face!”

“What?  Who’s…” said the woman’s voice.  They could hear her house slippers skipping along her kitchen tile until they met the carpet of her living room.  Pansy Parkinson suddenly appeared, and both her and Draco gasped at the sight of each other.  “Dr-Dra-Draco?” the now pug face woman stuttered behind her hand that covered her mouth.

“Pansy?  POTTER, NO, PLEASE!” Draco begged to no one.  Pansy looked around suspiciously.

“Potter?  Draco, what has Azkaban done to you?” Pansy asked, walking toward him, bypassing Harry although she didn’t know it.  “And what’s…all over you, Draco?” Draco took a couple of steps to the side, the only way he could moved being that his body was betraying him by the Imperious curse.  He grabbed hold of Pansy just as she reached for him.  She squeezed him tightly from missing him, he held her tightly trying to turn her away from area he felt Harry stood.  Draco put his hand over the back of her head and pressed it into his shoulder, and placed his other arm across her back as if shielding her from whatever may come.

“Draco, I missed you so much!” Pansy cried into his shoulder, holding him with all her might.  “I know what they are saying about you is not true…you would never kill anyone.  The Dark Lord was angry about Dumbledore, but he spared you.  I’ll hide you and take care of you.  Don’t wor…”

Draco didn’t pay attention to anything else Pansy was saying, as he usually did.  His only attention was to the area he knew Harry was standing.  His silver eyes pleaded to the opened air of the living room as Pansy continue to mumble “I love you” and “I missed you” to Draco.

“Please, Potter, spare her,” Draco begged.  It was the sign of Pansy’s insatiable need to tell Draco everything she was feeling for him, that she hadn’t heard him call to Harry once more.

Harry lowered the cloak and Draco squeezed Pansy tighter so that she didn’t notice him.  The cold look in Harry’s eyes made Draco’s squeeze his shut just as tightly as he held his old friend.  A new tear fell down his blood stained cheek.  Draco pulled Pansy’s head back off his shoulder slightly, keeping her view only on him and not the other person standing in her living room.  He kissed her with as much passion as he could muster and both Slytherins cheeks were drenched in tears.

Harry raised his wand and a green light filled Pansy Parkinson’s living room.

*************

Ginny woke with a start in front of a bush across the street from Scrimegour’s house.  She had been watching it for two weeks now, and her prediction seemed to be unfounded.  The Daily Prophet headlines also threw Ginny off her prediction, as it listed the names of several people she recognized to be former Slytherins, including Pansy Parkinson all losing their lives in one night, several days ago.  But the Prophet couldn’t make up its mind if it was Draco Malfoy committing these murders, or was he in leagues with the serial wizard killer they have yet to name or get a description of.  Ginny too was starting to wonder if Draco or the serial killer was, in fact, murdering people, or was it Harry.  Harry loathed all of the former Slytherins on that list, and Ginny could attribute their deaths to him, but then there were the other murders.  A lady named Mrs. Marietta Connors was found dead a few days ago with horrible carvings into her face that the Aurors thought spelled out a word, but she was so far along in her decomposing that they couldn’t recognize the letters.  Then there had been several Muggles murdered, all men who lived not far from Harry’s home on Privet Drive.  Ginny didn’t recognize any of the names, but all the men had a history of juvenile delinquency.

Deciding that it was time for her to retire and go home for some sleep, Ginny began packing away her secret camp site.  Just as she had shrunk everything into carrying size and stuffed it into her pocket, she saw something strange in the bushes in front of the Minster’s house.  When she looked closer, she couldn’t make out any figures but she watched the bushes still themselves, then move again suddenly.  Ginny walked into the street freely and slowly, trying to get a glimpse of whatever it was catching her attention, when suddenly she saw a bucket appear above the Minister’s front door and a green slimy potion dumped out on the bare ground.  The redhead ran behind a park car and looked in wonder at the strange sight with no one to claim the cause of its occurrence.

Ginny held her breath for several minutes waiting to see what else may happen.  Fifteen minutes later she realized no other strange occurrences were going to happen at that moment.  Unsure however, that that would be last of the evening, Ginny reluctantly set up her camp again and sighed as she sat down for another long night.

*************

Draco tossed and turned in his uncomfortable bed, having nightmares of his former friends murdered.  It had been a few days since, but every night he woke up just as Pansy fell lifeless from arms.  He could still feel her in his arms; her lips still warm on his as her eyes shot open suddenly when the curse hit her back, and closed slowly after, void of life.  Within those past few days, Draco stayed in his room, as far away from Harry as he could manage.  He often wondered why Harry would all of a sudden stalk into his room and stand there, not saying a word, his cold green eyes boring into his prisoner’s as if searching for something in the bloodshot pools of gray.  

Harry could see and hear the anger in Draco’s mind, but it seemed to be overpowered by the immense sadness that was evident in there was well, as Harry watched images of the fallen Slytherins flash in his mind.  Draco however, would only back away if he were standing or scoot further back on the floor or bed when Harry would arrive suddenly.  He did this every time regardless of how carelessly Harry held his wand to his side, loosely in his hand, as he would sometimes stalk right up to Draco’s face.

There was an obvious anger etched in Harry’s features each day he invaded Draco’s room.  Oddly, however, the anger seemed to heighten only when he turned away from the Slytherin to leave.  Draco could sense it because what little furniture there was in the room, a chair, a drawer less desk, a nightstand, all besides the bed, would shift as Harry retreated.  There was also the unmistaken gush of cold wind that flowed off Harry as he left, filling the room with what steadily grew to be a freezer-like cold.

Harry had no remorse for his killings, but one of the emotions left in him to feel was sadness.  The Boy Hero felt sadness; not for his victims, but for himself.  Sadness seemed to be just as brutal on his mind and on his body as his anger was.  He didn’t wreak his room like he often did when he was angry.  Instead, silent tears flowed heavily down his cheeks.  With his eyes squeezed tightly closed, he wanted to make the water stop, but mostly he wanted to clear his mind of the image of Lily grabbing for him as he left her arms.  Harry wanted the voices of his dad and Sirius calling for him to stay, to quiet because it caused his sadness to give way to pain.  His entire body and his mind throbbed as he seemed no closer to his goal.  And if he didn’t achieve it soon, he would refer back to his list.  

But not one of his incidents of revenge had given him any real peace.

The four walls surrounding him became too much to bare, so Harry shot up off the floor of his bedroom, and ran out his door.  One particular name that was still on his list flashed in his mind.

****

“Harry, this is going to sound strange but…I’ve been…having these very…vivid dreams about you…” said Cho as Harry got dressed.  He had returned to her home, and after her initial shock that she had no clue she had already experienced a few weeks ago, he stopped her from attending her best friend Marietta’s funeral.  

They had found Marietta after she had gone missing for the same few weeks since Harry’s last visit.  Cho told Harry about the horrible carving in Marietta’s face, and how no one had been able to read the word since she had begun decomposing already.  However, she didn’t have to know what the word said, because Harry remembered exactly what he had carved on the former Ravenclaw’s face:  _Oppressor_. 

However sad Cho was about the passing of her friend, she gave into Harry with little resistance.  He thought this time wouldn’t be easier when he kissed her, thinking that her mind would be filled with images of her friend and the sadness she felt over her loss.  On the contrary, Harry found that he was wrong.  Just as before, he could see images of Cho crying for him, over his grave, alone in her room, and so on.  But this time there were new images he hadn’t seen in her mind before; it was their last time together.  So now as Cho’s sexed, pained, and naked form lay on her couch watching Harry dress, he understood why she was having such ‘vivid dreams’ about him.  

He didn’t mind so much the images of their last time together, he had thought of them a few times since.  It was the sounds of her pouring her heart out to him nonverbally that Harry had to do all he could to block out his mind through their sexual romps.  He had achieved his goal, and now sat tying his shoes with a clear mind, no anger, no painful sadness, not even confusion.  Emptiness never felt so good.  Cho did more for him then she’d ever know.

Judging by her nonverbally but profusely expressed feelings, and their last time together, Harry knew soon she would ask something of him.  “Harry, may I…see you again?” she asked timidly, standing up and walking her naked body toward him with no shame.  Harry stood up and Cho placed her soft hand on his cheek.  “Please?” she breathed, before gently kissing him.

Harry grabbed her hand from his cheek and stepped back breaking their kiss.  He stared at her for a moment, contemplating what to do with her.  He had failed to kill her before, but what purpose did she serve still alive?  After all, she was his first brief heartbreak.  Harry scanned her mind, she was already replaying the events of the day, and he could tell she wanted more of them.  Suddenly, he moved her by her arm, pushing her to sit down.  Expressionless, he grabbed a throw blanket they had no use for moments before, off her couch and covered her with it.  Cho smiled. 

“Thank you, but I’m not cold.  Quite the contrary…” she said slyly reaching for him again, but Harry backed up.

“I’d…rather you not catch cold sitting there with no clothes on,” he said coolly watching her.

“Keep me warm, then?” she smiled, the voices were loud in her head begging for him once more.  Tempting as it sounded to keep going and going with Cho, keeping his mind clear, and getting lost in all she offered for hours on end, Harry shook his head, and raised his wand.

*********

Harry’s clear mind took him all the way home.  He didn’t stop to watch any houses, or plot on any of his next victims.  All he felt was exhaustion, for obvious reasons, and he knew tonight he would actually get a good nights sleep.

Stepping into the dark foyer of his home, Harry was thrown back against the door as chair collided into his chest, knocking the wind out of his body.  His eyes tried to focus on his attacker, but he couldn’t quite see just yet in the dark house.  And before he had a prayer of clearer vision, he felt his collar being tugged, and his body thrown across the living room.  Harry weakly grabbed for his wand.  He hit his head on something hard, and the dark image advancing on him looked doubled.  Nevertheless, he raised his wand.  “Experiallamus!” he shouted in order to disarm the person, but the figure kept coming, having no wand to be disarmed off.

Suddenly, the body leapt on Harry and the two rolled around the floor.  Through the obscenities the attacker was spewing at Harry, he realized it was Draco.  And although Harry was being attacked, his mind remained just as clear as when he lifted himself off of Cho an hour ago.  In fact, the more he could see the images of all the murders he had made Draco witness flash in his mind as he punched and spit at Harry, the clearer Harry’s mind remained.  Harry’s wand suddenly rolled out his hand, and his punches to Draco’s face and body as the two tumbled over and over on the ground, began to miss or were too soft for a real impact.

Harry could taste his own blood, even felt a tooth loosen in his mouth.  Draco’s frail body was heavy on Harry’s frail body when he was on top of him, and it often caused Harry to stop breathing.

“I’ll kill you, Potter!” screamed Draco through the many obscenities he was yelling.  Harry rolled them closer to his falling wand, but didn’t reach for it himself.  Draco seemed to notice that they had gotten closer to it as well.  “Oh no you don’t!” he yelled, rolling them away from the discarded wand.  

Now Harry’s anger was beginning to creep back in to his system.  Draco’s mind was all over the place, Harry could sense.  He was fighting him from sadness, not real anger.  Harry could feel wetness dripping from Draco’s face he knew was not sweat or spit, as the salty taste of tears fell into Harry’s mouth.  “You’re PATHETIC!” Harry sneered at Draco.  “Is this all you’ve got?  Bloody arse!” Harry baited, rolling them back toward the wand.

“Arse, am I?  You cold-hearted git!  Cold blooded murderer!  Heartless wanker!” Draco spat through obvious tears now.  He grabbed Harry’s wand, and for a brief moment in the dark room, Harry smiled.  

However, that smile turned into the coldest glare Harry had ever contorted his face to make as Draco threw the wand clear across the room.  Harry was now boiling with anger, and an ice cold breezed poured from his body so fiercely, Draco’s teeth chattered for a moment.  Then Harry placed both his hands in front of Draco as he continued to punch Harry, and suddenly, Draco flew back as white lights emanated from Harry’s fingers.  Draco flew into the hallway and hit his head on the bottom step of the staircase.  He half sat up, squeezing his eyes shut from the sudden onset of pain as he slowly grabbed for the back of his head, turned to his side, and cried on the floor.

Harry’s footsteps toward Draco did not bring him out of his sobbing.  Harry stood over him for a moment before picking up his wand that lay beside the crying Slytherin, and before going up the stairs.

Draco lay at the foot of the stairs awhile, sobbing and willing his head to stop throbbing.  He heard Harry’s bedroom door slam shut and cried even harder knowing he didn’t stop him like he planned.  Suddenly, Draco felt a breeze flow over him, and he shot his head up, thinking Harry had returned, but then realized he hadn’t.  The front door creaked as the wind blew.  It was left opened.  Draco stared at it for a moment in shock.  The door had been open for him before, but he knew he couldn’t leave because he would be caught immediately by the Ministry.  However, his mind began to race as he felt a form of relief come in a sudden plan.

Draco crawled quietly to the door, taking care to look over his shoulder repeatedly on his way.  He pulled open the door slightly and could see an over grown lawn and a dimly lit house across the street and one next to that with many lights.  He knew it wasn’t particularly late at night, even though he could hear owls cooing in the trees.  This was exactly what he wanted.  Scrambling quickly but quietly, Draco ripped a piece of dusty parchment from a broken end table.  Finding an equally-saved-of-cleaning quill, he began to scribble a note.  He didn’t know anything about the person he wanted to send it to now but the name and that he had seen her recently.  He called an owl down to the door, attached the letter, and hoped it reached its destination.

************ 


	4. Saving Souls

**Saving Souls**

Nearly 1am, Ginny finally fumbled sleepily to her front door.  Her camp was tucked in her robes and all she dreamt of now was her bed.  Climbing the stairs, she heard her owl Jinxy cooing unhappily in her kitchen where his perch stood.  Afraid of what may be causing this disturbance of her normally peaceful pet, Ginny pulled her wand out and slowly tip-toed to her kitchen.  Standing up against the wall near the doorway, she peeked around the corner almost expecting to see the serial killer that was on the loose, or worse, Harry waiting to exact his revenge on her from bringing him back.  Instead, however, she saw a large scruffy barn owl flying around her kitchen with a crumpled piece of paper stuck in its beak.  Jinxy, unhappy with the intrusion, kept his wide yellow eyes on the untamed bird.  Ginny quickly called the bird down, and it landed on her kitchen table, unceremoniously shaking dirt off its body and into her bowl of fruit.  Fortunately, this didn’t stop the bird from eating anything it could from that bowl, which left Ginny able to retrieve the letter from him easily.  

She opened the crumpled paper and read it, holding her mouth as she gasped.

_Weasley,_

_Potter’s back.  He’s gone mad.  He is ruthless and dangerous and has me hostage.  Get his friends and stop him._

_DM_

It took Ginny several minutes and several re-reads to uncover her mouth.  She realized she had no clue who DM was, or why Harry had this person hostage.  All she knew was now, someone else knew her secret.  In addition to that, it confirmed that Harry was really out there _hurting_ people.

Ginny sat down at her table.  Silent tears fell down her face before she pulled out a piece of parchment to respond.

****************

Percy Weasley sat in his home eating breakfast.  His wife Penelope had already gone off to work and the two had no children.  He took his time reading the Prophet and its disturbing headlines of random murders with Draco Malfoy still on the run.  He mostly read it to see his little sister’s name as editor.  It often made his chest swell with pride even though he had never made amends with his family from so many years ago.  However, Ginny was the only one he sent birthday and holiday presents to.  Every morning, or those lonely times when he missed his family, he’d smile at the many pictures of the Weasleys he had scattered around his house; particular those of his pretty little sister.

Percy felt a cold rush of wind flow over him as he stood pouring coffee in his kitchen.  Thinking that the window was open, he turned to close it and suddenly dropped the kettle on the floor.  About twelve feet away from him stood an anxious and visibly terrified Draco Malfoy.  Percy’s wand was on his kitchen table, closer to the intruder than to him.  His eyes darted toward it, then back at Draco.  The blonde just stood trembling with no weapons in his hands.  Although he found it odd, Percy didn’t waste time contemplating the strange behavior of a run away convict, so he ran quickly toward the table, hand outstretched for his wand.  Draco seemed to be pulled forward, and before Percy reached his wand, he tripped over something that wasn’t there caused by an orange light.  Another random light shot out of nowhere toward his head, and Percy rolled toward his kitchen door, then out into his living room.

The pictures of the Weasleys all looked shocked as Percy ducked and dodge random lights coming at him from nowhere.  Draco held onto the doorway of the kitchen with all his might; his mind pleaded with his body to break through the wretched Unforgivable placed on him.  As his legs continued to try and walk toward Percy.  His hands, in turn with each other, would let go of the threshold, then grab it once more.  With his mind in conflict with the top part of his body and the bottom, his legs lifted off the floor as if a strong wind was blowing him toward the frightened redhead.

“Draco…Draco, stop this!  I know our families never got on with one another, but…you can’t go around murdering people!  I have it on good authority you were set to be release!  Now, you’ve gone and done all this!” yelled Percy, still dodging random lights he didn’t see coming from Draco.

“IT’S NOT ME!” screamed Draco, his fingers giving way from the door and he walked speedily toward Percy’s direction, the Imperius Curse proving to be too strong.  Trying to resist, Draco flew into a wall and knocked down several photographs of the red-haired family.

Although hidden by the Invisibility Cloak, the pictures seemed to scatter neatly by Harry’s feet.  As he stepped on the faces of Bill and Charlie as babies, he looked down at the newspaper clipping from many years ago when the Weasleys won a sweepstakes and went to Egypt.  Harry saw the faces looking worriedly up at nothing.  A worried face they had often worn for him.  Well, most of them.  Not the one that now cowered in a corner of his home, pleading with a whimpering Draco to turn himself back in.  This one deserved what Harry came to do.  He turned his back on those he loved, Harry reasoned with himself as he looked down at Mrs. Weasley’s face in the frame, near tears now watching the scene.  Those tears were similar to his own mother’s face when he was pulled from her arms.  Ginny’s twelve-year-old self looked equally as worried next to her thirteen-year-old brother, and Harry’s former best friend, Ron.

Harry shook off the images of the family that cared for him, and turned again toward the one that had deserted them, that had turned against him and helped to oppress him when he was alive as well.  He was set to lower his hood and administer the final blow to the third oldest Weasley, but the family photo caught his eye again.  Ignoring the fact that Draco was now screaming for Percy to run for his life, Harry watched the family again for a moment, all nodding their heads in agreement with what the Slytherin was demanding.  Harry looked up and saw the redhead sliding along the wall trying to get away, but the Boy Hero raised his wand.   

Before Percy could make it to the door, a purple light filled the room.

*************

Draco’s bed was unkempt in his room, but not from him sleeping in it.  Most nights now, Draco stayed bunched in a corner of the room on the floor, occasionally carrying a blanket with him.  There was a slight comfort for him to feel the wall on his back and on his legs at once so that no one, namely Harry, could sneak up behind him.  He hadn’t slept without horrific nightmares of the murders he had witnessed since he was taken from Azkaban.  His woken days were filled with the same torturous images; the screams ringing in his head, and the sensation of blood splattering on his face and body.  The little bit of sanity he left Azkaban with was beginning to slip away.

Draco could hear that Harry was not in the house.  He often wondered where he went and why so often he would come back with a relaxed look on his face.  Today, Draco finally decided to leave his room for a moment to find water and food since Harry was no longer bringing him his meals.  He tip-toed through the house, occasionally shaking his head as the screams of his former friends echoed in his mind, begging him for help, begging him not to kill them.  Often, Draco would begin wringing his hands, convinced that blood was splattered on them, or dripping from his finger tips.  The Slytherin’s stomach was often in knots and he knew what ever he forced down now, would revisit shortly after.  

Making his way into the dank kitchen of Harry’s home, he quickly poured himself some water and grabbed several pieces of bread.  Shoving them into his mouth speedily in case Harry came home, Draco heard a faint tapping.  Fear shot through him almost instantly because he didn’t know if the noise was Harry in the house, or Harry in his head.  Then he noticed something by the front door windows.  Draco slowly walked out of the kitchen and toward the front door where he could now see something fluttering around.  Cracking open the front door, the sunlight flooded the doorway and his pale, gray, bloodshot eyes as well.  The disheveled wild owl he had summoned a few nights ago was carrying a piece of parchment in his beak.  Draco’s heart leapt as he took the letter from the bird, and threw the piece of bread he had outside for its reward.

_DM,_

_I’m not sure who you are, but you must tell me where to find Harry.  I know he is back, and I know he is dangerous.  Can’t explain in the letter.  If you can, stay as far away from him as possible._

_Ginny Weasley_

Draco had no clue where he was.  He again cracked open the door just to see if he could read the address number on the decrypted house.  The fresh morning air was a relief to his dust filled lungs, but he hadn’t noticed.  His mind was focused on one thing only.  “Number twenty-seven…” he said out loud to himself as he looked for street sign.  All he could make out was the G and O before he found himself flying backward in the house.  Harry had just Apparated outside on the overgrown walkway, having spent the entire prior evening at Cho’s, and promptly raised his wand to what he believed to be a fleeing Draco.  

As Draco flew through the air, he crumpled the letter in his hand in a tight ball and prayed if he was knocked out, that he didn’t drop it.  As soon as his head hit the middle of the staircase, he saw stars and hoped for the best.

*********************************

“Ginny?” called a groggy Percy in a hospital room at St. Mungo’s.

“Percy!  Oh, thanks goodness your all right!  I’ll run and fetch Penelope!” said Ginny near tears as she looked over her older brother.

“No, no, Ginny wait!” called Percy, reaching for his little sister.  “I…  Are you the…only one here?”

Ginny lowered her head.  She hadn’t told the rest of the family yet that Percy had been in the hospital for four days, unconscious.  She wanted to make sure he was alright beforehand and wanted to know if he wanted to see any of them before she brought the entire Weasley clan there.  “Yes, Percy.  I didn’t tell mum or dad yet.  I…wasn’t sure you even wanted to see me.  But when Penelope owled me…I was coming regardless…”

Percy smiled and reached for his sister’s tiny hand.  “Thanks, Ginny.  I’m glad you’re here.  I’m so sorry for…everything.  I…”

“Percy, stop it!” said Ginny forcefully, yet gently squeezing his hand.  “I don’t care about that now.  It’s more important that you get better.  Then we can talk about…whatever…”

Percy nodded his head slowly, lowering his eyes.  “I just know - especially for you - how much you cared for Harry.  I…”

Ginny’s eyes widened at the sound of Harry’s name.  She didn’t even think about Percy to add to her, well Harry’s, list.  _But Harry couldn’t have…could he?_ she thought.  “Percy…who did this to you?” she asked with much trepidation, interrupting him.

Percy looked at the concerned eyes of his sister, as confusion slowly filled his.  “It’s quite odd, Ginny.  One moment I’m alone in my kitchen getting ready for work, the next moment Draco Malfoy is standing behind me.”  Ginny gasped and covered her mouth.  “But what’s odder still is the fact that he had no wand.  He didn’t reach for my wand, which was on the table.  As a matter of fact, he looked more terrified then me, and even told me to run for it.  But all these curses were coming from his general direction, even when he had his back toward me.”  Percy let go of his sister hand for only a moment to squeeze the bridge of his nose, usually covered by his horned rim glasses.  He even giggled lightly.  “Honestly, it was the strangest thing, but I felt…like it wasn’t him at all.  Draco Malfoy, can you imagine?”

_Draco Malfoy_ , thought Ginny.  

“DRACO MALFOY!” she nearly yelled, startling her newly awaken brother.

Percy grabbed her hand with both of his.  “Yes!  But, Ginny, it’s alright!  I…don’t think he’s dangerous.  In fact, I don’t think the Aurors are going to believe me when I tell them who my attacker was.  I’m sure that…”

“Tell?  No!  Uh, no, Percy.  You mustn’t tell anyone it was Malfoy!  Tell them…it was the serial killer or something!  But please….for me…don’t tell them it was Malfoy!” Ginny pleaded, while her brown eyes pleaded even more.

Percy watched his little sister in complete shock, confusion, and bewilderment.  “Ginny, by law, I’m to…”

“Percy, please for once in your life…” begged Ginny.  “For me?”

Percy’s face expression did not change as he considered his sister for a moment, before slowly nodding his head in agreement.

*************

Draco woke up to a dark staircase.  He was still splayed on it and his entire body ached.  Instantly, he remembered the letter and squeezed his hand to see if it was still there.  He didn’t dare open his hand to look just in case Harry was around and watching him.  To his relief, he felt something tightly knotted in his hand.  Sitting up slowly, he looked around.  The foyer, the living room, and what looked like the kitchen area, seemed to be dark.  His body screamed in random places as he stood up, but his mind was solely on the letter.  Climbing the stairs slowly, he retreated to his room, and shut the door.  Draco knew he had to get a message back, but he couldn’t open his own windows.  Finally, he resolved to the idea of shattering a window with his head if he had to in order to get his message out.  But it would be awhile before he could get a piece of parchment and quill to reply.  At least he wouldn’t try tonight.

Back aching, and screams echoing in his head, although a lot quieter than usual, Draco folded his blanket around himself, and lay down in his corner of the room.

****************

Every morning for the next few days, Ginny would instantly run to the kitchen to see if her owl or an owl had brought her any letters.  The realization that it was Draco Malfoy that had contacted her, flooded Ginny with many mixed feelings.  She didn’t know if he should be trusted.  Or if he merely found out her secret and was planning to use it as some sort of bartering tool to clear his name.  At the same time, he sounded so desperate, beyond what a man wanted for murder and escaping prison would sound.  Either way, she had to keep in contact with him in order to get to Harry.

_And if I do find him,_ Ginny thought to herself, _what am I to do with him then?_

“Stop him!” she said aloud, her heart breaking inside.

*****

Ginny sat at her desk at work late one afternoon, not having done much work at all that day, which was common lately.  She also hadn’t been camping out of at Scrimegour’s lately, afraid that an owl might deliver the response she was looking for while she was hiding, or while she was away from home.  Her intentions, if she received the response she needed, would be to go straight off to find Draco…and Harry.  Fearful of finding both, one, or neither of them, Ginny had no choice in the matter.

A gentle breeze flowed through the window of her office, then a heavy gush of wind followed.  Ginny turned around finding it odd, but found a wild barn owl sitting on the window ceil.  Keeping herself from gasping and rushing over to the large bird, possibly scaring it way, Ginny stood up slowly, swallowed hard and tried to steady her trembling hands.  As she reached the owl, he dropped the letter inside the window and took off.

Ginny dove for the letter as if it would hit the ground and disintegrate.  Retrieving it in time, she opened the crumpled and noticeably blood stained parchment.

_Weasley,_

_Don’t know where I am exactly.  Saw the number 27 on the door.  When I looked at the sign on the corner, all I could see were the letters G and O before Potter arrived and attacked me._

_Please help!_

_DM_

Ginny finally let out the gasp she held in from the sight of the bird, to the sight of the amount of blood smudging the parchment.  However, she was still just as clueless about how to find to him as she was that he existed still.  

Deciding that the four walls of her office were not going to help her get to her answer any quicker, Ginny took off early, again.

For hours, she wracked her brain.  She thought of all the places Harry would go, but they were all places she had checked shortly after he left.  Now she found herself in the middle of the night elbow deep in his box of personal belongings they had given her after his death.  Yet, she was still no closer to an answer.

Nearly asleep at her desk the next day, Ginny lazily scribbled “27 Go…  27 Go…” several times hoping it would come to her.  Springing up from her seat at a sudden idea, Ginny ran down stairs to the archive room of the Daily Prophet.  She searched through stacks and stacks of old newspapers until she was fed up.  Pulling out her wand, Ginny pointed at the mountains of paper.  “Copy date:  31st of October, 1981, and 1st of November, 1981.”  With a swish of her wand, two newspapers flew out of the middle of the stacks and hovered in front of her.

**The Dark Lord Has Fallen,** is the headline that got her attention on the paper with the November date.  Quickly Ginny skimmed through the article and read about how Harry Potter, age one had killed the dreaded He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Name, but lost his parents.  She read on to see that the house on number 27, Godric’s Way had been partly demolished but still standing where the Potters were found…

Ginny yelped with joy, dropped the paper, and ran for the door.

*************

Night had fallen not only outside, but inside Draco’s room.  He refused to light the candles, not needing them really when he could clearly see flashes of murder in his mind.  The corner of his room was his only sanctuary, at least it kept him from looking over his shoulder every few minutes.  His frail body would take turns sitting up in the corner or laying down with his backside tucked in the corner, causing his body to form a 90-degree angle.  Showering and shaving were not his practices anymore, being too afraid to leave the corner for too long, or leaving himself exposed at all angles in case Harry came to get him.  His eyes also took turns crying, transfixed on nothing, or squeezing tightly close in a futile attempt to shut out the images he saw in his mind.

Tonight he prayed for a peaceful sleep as he began to drift off.  The fear of nightmares kept him awake most nights, or the screams in his head would shake him awake if he did manage sleep.  But tonight would not be a peaceful night.

Draco jumped up from his 90-degree angle when he heard the door open.  Instantly, his body began shaking as he watched the dark form of Harry walking toward him.

“No, Potter, please?” Draco begged.  “Please, no more!  I can’t bloody well take it!  If you’re going to put me under the Imperious, do it on my mind as well!  Have me…kil - kill whomever, just as long as I can forget afterward!  Please?”

Draco’s words seemed completely ignored as he found himself lifting to his feet by Harry’s hand around his neck.  With a swish of Harry’s wand, and while holding his breath at the stench emanating from his prisoner, Draco’s shoes and proper clothing were on his body.  Setting him on his feet, Harry swished his wand again, and Draco’s body went briefly ridged, instantly recognizing that the dreaded curse had been placed on his body, and body only, once more.  Harry released his boney neck, turned away from him, and began walking toward the bedroom door.

Draco felt his body betraying his mind, going forward as soon as Harry walked out the door, while pulling the Invisibility Cloak over his body.  Recognizing this routine, the screams in his mind were now at a deafening roar, knowing that another would soon be added.  Water dripped from Draco’s eyes as he was dragged by his will-less power down the stairs and out the door.  The drops hit his chest and hands, but he didn’t see the clear liquid falling on his body.  Every drip was crimson red and pooled with the other splashes of blood only his mind told him was there.  Whimpering, protesting, and begging in turn, all the sounds he produced fell on deaf ears.  And soon he found himself outside in the overgrown yard.  His collar was now held tightly in Harry’s hand before they both disappeared on the spot. 

The Slytherin didn’t even hear the gasp coming from just outside the gate.

**********

Ginny couldn’t believe her eyes.  All that stood before her was an overgrown yard.  It looked as though a house may have been there once, but it had been completely remove.  But this didn’t shock Ginny.  What made her gasp was the fact that she saw a whimpering, destitute looking Draco Malfoy suddenly appearing - to be dragged - out of nowhere, then just as suddenly disappearing against, what it looked like, his own will.

It took her a moment to realize that he had vanished.  _The way he was being dragged, it looked like someone was pulling him, or he was walking against his will.  And before he disappeared, he tilted his head back as if afraid of something in his face._   Ginny ran the scenario over and over quickly in her mind.  _But there was no one there…that I could see…  SEE!_  

“Bloody hell!” Ginny said aloud.  “Where…” 

She thought hard for a moment, realizing Harry was the one reaching toward Draco’s face, and that he had to have been wearing the Invisibility Cloak.  She wondered and worried about where they had gone.  Remembering what Draco said about Harry being dangerous, Ginny quickly swallowed a lump forming in her throat, accepting now that Harry was the cause of so many deaths and that ultimately, she is the real murderer because she brought him back.  She had to stop him, and save Draco now.  _But where could they be going?_ she thought.  Suddenly, Ginny turned on the spot outside the gate of number 27, Godric’s Way.  She had a hunch as to where they had gone, but she prayed she hadn’t been forsaken by a higher power even more so because being caught there, would reveal all.

Opening her eyes to her familiar bush of hiding across the street from a quaint house, Ginny realized that she had been again forsaken.  She hid behind the foliage the moment she caught sight of Draco standing shakily in the dim street light.  Suddenly, he seemed pulled into an awkward run. And just as he turned to run the other way, what seemed to Ginny to be multiple tiny bumble gum balls flew out of nowhere, pelting Draco all over his body.  But these turned out to not be ordinary gum balls, for they stuck to his body and began to expand, covering his clothes and skin.  Several hit his face, and as he struggled out his cry of “NO!”, the balls expanded on his head.  Ginny’s wand was out, she knew he would suffocate and die.  Just as she was set to run out of her hiding place, a white light from out of nowhere, hit Draco causing the balls to explode, uncovering his face, and giving him to the opportunity to breathe.

Ginny crouched back down.  She didn’t know if his life being spared just now was a good thing or bad thing.  It was obvious the Minister had protections around his house.  As soon as she saw the gasping Draco take to a run again toward the house, she knew he was spared for a reason.  Ginny watched Draco suddenly trip forward.  Then swiftly, there was the sound of whips cutting through the night air.  Draco was instantly hoisted in the air by, what Ginny guessed to be the invisible ropes, because his limbs where held outward from his body and slowly being pulled in opposite directions.  Ginny held back the scream that Draco was releasing quite liberally.  It made her stomach turn to watch a human body being pulled by all its limbs. And just as she was sure she’d wretch right there at the moment blood that would drip from the center of Draco’s torn body, she was relieved as she saw a yellow light hit him, and he fell to the ground with a tremendous THUD.

Knowing that Draco’s body would not be able to handle much more of this, Ginny decided that she needed to step in.  She slowly raised her tiny frame up from behind the bush, though still mostly covered by it.  But again, just as she was about to move into action, so did Draco’s body.  

Now heading steadfast for the door, Draco was screaming for mercy.  Ginny was sure the entire neighborhood would be hear him and that the Aurors and Muggle police alike would soon be on the scene.  She knew if her opportunity finally came, she had to take it.  Facing Harry or not, facing what he may do her, Ginny couldn’t let it stop her.  It was important now to stop him.

Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks as Draco’s awkward, painful run toward the door resulted in a mass of green, smoky liquid falling from out of nowhere and drenching his entire body.  Draco yelled no more, for his entire body locked, and he turned completely white.  Ginny watched his body fall solidly to the ground with an odd CLINK.  

The redhead now took to a run, but when the front door of the house sprung open, she ducked by a car.  The old lion-looking Minister of Magic came charging out with a look of triumph on his face.  Making his way over to the frozen body of Draco Malfoy, Ginny could hear him let out a yelp of joy.  However, before Ginny could react, she saw a red light hit Scrimegour in the chest, and the old man went flying back into his front door, screaming in pain.  Draco’s body looked as if it was slightly being dragged, but when then a white light hit him, he was not moving anymore.  Unfortunately, Ginny watched the front door close on its own, and she realized Harry was inside the house. However, Draco was left alone.  She sprinted over to him, praying he was still alive.  The young Weasley saw and felt cold air coming off of him.  When she touched him, ignoring the screams and struggles inside the house, he was ice cold.  Suddenly, a green light flooded underneath the front door.  

With not a moment left to think, Ginny wrapped an arm around the frozen body in front of her, and apparated them both away.

Five minutes later, Harry walked out of the house.  Looking to where he remembered leaving Draco, he saw nothing.  Glancing around the front yard to find no one, bushes and trees began to uproot, the windows of Scrimegour’s house shattered, and his front door slammed so hard on its own that it broke off the hinges.

*************

It had been three hours since Ginny had taken Draco away from Scrimegour’s house before she could finally reverse the freezing spell placed on him from the Minister’s protections.  Now she had him wrapped in several blankets with warm tea and soup sitting by the bedside.  He hadn’t woken up, but she knew he was alive when he began to twitch in his sleep.  It was obvious to her he was having a nightmare.  He had had several in the last hour since she was able to reverse the spell.  And sweat beaded on his forehead, of which she kept dabbing with a towel as he shook.

The skin of Ginny’s hand accidentally touch Draco’s forehead as she dabbed the sweat away.  His gray eyes shot open, and he nearly yelled at the sight of a hand pulling away from his face.  Once his eyes focused on Ginny, however, he sat straight up and hugged her.

“WEASLEY!  OH, THANK GOD!” Draco shouted over her shoulder.

Ginny had gotten use to the stench of his body for the three hours she had taken care of him, however, when he lifted himself up and half out the four blankets that covered him, while putting his arms around her, it was overwhelming.  She didn’t quite know what to do with her own arms as her former enemy squeezed her while trembling.  Slowly, she lifted her one arm, and patted him on the back.  The moment her hand touched his back, Draco pulled away from her, and scooted back on the bed as far as he could with a look of fear on his face.

“Wh-what’s the matter?” asked Ginny with udder confusion on her face.

Draco looked at her for a moment with his fearful expression, and then quickly glanced around the room.  He didn’t recognize it, obviously, but it was in near shambles.  There were broken dresser drawers, tables, and chairs lying around.  “I - WHERE AM I?  WHERE’S POTTER?” he shouted with terror in his voice.

Ginny narrowed her eyes at the scared, trembling figure of Draco Malfoy in front of her.  “He’s…I don’t know!  I…took you from in front of Scrimegour’s house before Harry came back out.”  Draco still looked very frightened; Ginny’s felt so sorry for him.  She reached out a hand toward him, and he pressed his back further into the headboard of the bed.  She retracted her hand.  “Malfoy…?  Don’t…worry.  This is my house…he’s not here…anymore,” Ginny said the last word under her breath.

“What do you mean ‘anymore’?” Draco asked, catching the word.

Ginny shook her head.  “Doesn’t matter.  You’re safe here.  He hasn’t been here since well before you escaped from Azkaban…”

“I didn’t escape!” Draco interrupted her.  “He…he came there…and he…killed…all the Death Eaters…including my…so-called father.  If my mum wasn’t in the insanity ward of Azkaban, I reckoned he’d have killed her too.  But…he wouldn’t…kill me.  I begged him too!  I wanted to die!  But he felt I deserved to suffer something worse than death.  I begged him to…BEGGED…” Draco shouted, lowering his head to the blanket, his trembling becoming even more pronounced.

This time when Ginny reached out toward him out of pity, he allowed her to touch his arm.  “Look, Malfoy, you don’t have to talk about it right now, really.  You’re in a right state at the moment.  You…don’t look like…you’ve slept or eaten much.”  Ginny paused as Draco shook his head toward his lap.  She reached for the still warm soup sitting on the newly repaired nightstand, and held it in front of him.  

Draco looked at the steaming bowl and hesitantly took it out her hands.  “Thanks…” he mumbled before lifting it to his mouth and sipping it, a look of gratitude evident in his pale grey eyes as he lowered it and exhaled.

Draco ate his soup and drank his tea as the two sat in silence.  When Ginny asked if he wanted more, he responded with a very timid “yes.”

“Ok, I’ll be right back.  More tea as well, then?” Ginny asked getting to her feet and heading toward the door.  There was silence from the bed and she turned to Draco, wondering why she hadn’t gotten an answer.  The fearful look that had disappeared as he ate, returned.  Ginny looked out the bedroom door quickly as if someone was standing there, then around the room where she saw nothing threatening.  “Malfoy…”

“Wh-where are you going?” he asked, the fear in his eyes slightly evident in his voice.

Ginny narrowed her eyes and scanned the room again.  “Well…downstairs, of course,” she answered, confused by his demeanor and tone.  “The soups in the kitchen.”

Draco took a deep breath and looked down at his lap.  He nodded quickly, and Ginny could actually see pink rising in his extremely pale cheeks.  “Right.  Sorry.  I knew…that,” he muttered in embarrassment.

Ginny considered him for a moment, and then nodded as well before going out the door.  Confused thoroughly, Ginny finally made it to her kitchen.  She realized that Draco was either a very good actor, or was genuinely fearful of Harry and in a need of help.  She wondered what he had been through, but he didn’t seem fit to talk about it.  In addition to that, she feared what would happen if he asked her how she knew Harry had returned.

“WEASLEY!” came a terrified yell from upstairs.  Ginny nearly dropped her bowl of hot soup on the floor, only just managing to get it to the counter before sprinting upstairs.  When she made it to the room Harry had stayed in, that Draco was now in, she found him backed into a corner of the floor, shakily tremendously.  Ginny looked around the room to see if there was someone there who had caused this reaction.  Again, she found no one.  She quickly went toward Draco who held his knees to his chest, a wild look of fear in his eyes.

“What is it, Malfoy?” she asked with concern, dropping to her knees in front of him.

Draco looked at her, and then looked as if he was trying to blink the wild look of fear out of his eyes.  His paled skin was turning pink again.  “I - I’m sorry.  I…just got…”  The screams in his head were so loud now, he was sure Ginny could hear them.  He lowered his head to his knees and hands.  As if it were dripping slowly from the ceiling, the Slytherin could see spots of blood appearing on his clothing, then on his hands.  He began wringing his hands harshly, trying to wipe the blood away.  But the only blood that was there was his own rising under his skin from the friction he was causing.

Ginny’s brown eyes widen, watching Draco rub his hands raw.  “Malfoy…” she said softly, “what’s - stop that!”  Ginny gently laid her hands on his wrists and with as much force as she could muster, pulled his hands apart.  Draco’s eyes met hers and she could see them brimming with tears.  Her heart sank as she watched him for a moment in silence.  “My God…what has he done to you?” she asked in quiet alarm.

He lowered his head toward his trembling knees as tears dripped down his face.  Quickly, Draco released his arms from her and wiped the tears away, sniffing hard.  “He’s done…nothing…to me exactly, besides attack me or fight me off,” he said slowly, then brushed something red off his knee that only he could see.  “It’s what he’s…done to others…”

Ginny’s insides turned ice cold and she held her breath.  “What…has his done, Malfoy?” she said quietly, having a pretty good idea, but not really wanting to hear it.

Draco shook his head, trying to quiet the screams, trying to shake away the images of those he watched die instantly, or set to bleed to death at Harry’s hands.  “He’s…killed…”

Ginny lowered her head, willing the tears not to fall that instantly brimmed her own eye lids.

“…so many…people.  Heartlessly sometimes.  Pansy…” Draco nearly whispered, lowering his head even more, “right in my arms.  He…”

Ginny sniffed hard.  “I’m sorry,” she said sorrowfully.

Draco lifted his head slowly.  He watched Ginny wiped the tears off her face, as one still trickled down his cheek.  “It’s…not your fault, Weasley,” Draco said thoughtfully.

_Yes it is_ , she thought, guilt boiling in her chest and stomach.

Draco wiped the remaining tear off his face, and watched Ginny’s lowered head cry silently.  He slowly reached toward her shoulder, and gingerly patted it.  “Your brother, Percy, I think…is he still - I mean, have they found him?”

Ginny’s head shot up and she looked into the sorrowful gray eyes of her enemy.  “Percy, yes,” she sniffed.  “He’s fine.  So it was…Harry, then, that…attacked him?”

Draco nodded, and looked down at his knees again.  “I…don’t know…why he spared him.  I wasn’t actually sure if he had…or not…I’ve never seen that spell.  I was doing all I could to get your brother to run, but he kept trying to get me to turn myself back into prison.  He didn’t realize I was already in prison, and at any moment, he would be…dead.”

Ginny watched him for a moment.  Percy had told her that Draco suggested he run, but she thought maybe the bump on his head had caused some false memories to arise.  Although it hadn’t worked, she felt grateful for what he tried to do.  “Thanks for that,” she said sincerely.  “He’s as stubborn as they come.  Still hasn’t quite made up with my family after all he said about Har…”  Ginny stopped, unable to finish the sentence without bringing on more tears.  Everyone who had hurt Harry in some way in the past was being attacked.  Those who hurt him now were just as vulnerable, which meant herself.

“Don’t thank me,” said Draco, “I was really trying to get away as well.  Or at least annoy Potter enough that he would kill me instead.”

Ginny’s heart sank again.  “Why were you happy to get away then if you wanted to die?”

Draco’s gray eyes were red again, and he looked away.  “I couldn’t bloody well take it anymore…watching people…murdered…begging for their lives…begging ME for their lives…cursing ME to hell for what they thought I was set to do to them.  I see them…in my head…in my dreams…” he lowered his head, pain very evident in his voice.  “I see them all the time…begging me…but it’s not me, it’s him!” he cried.  “They don’t know because they can’t see him, can they?  I think sometimes he’s a figment of my imagination too!  Like he’s really not killing these people; like it’s really me instead using the image of him doing it!  I’ve gone MAD!” his gray eyes went wild suddenly.  “I’M DANGEROUS, WEASLEY!  GET AWAY FROM ME!  I’M A BLOODY MURDERER!” he sputtered out crazily.

Ginny’s cheeks were drenched, but she didn’t so much as flinch when his speech became incoherent and he went back to wiping the imaginary blood off his face and hands roughly.  Unable to stand the sight of Draco, and feeling guilt eating at her insides, Ginny grabbed Draco around the neck and held him tightly to her chest.  He continued to mutter as she held him, but soon he was quiet as tears drenched the front of her shirt.  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

“Get - away - from - me - I’m dangerous,” he said slowly and just above a whisper before wrapping his trembling arms around her, and freely sobbing on her chest.

Ginny held him while he cried, her own tears dripping on him as she rubbed his greasy, matted white blonde hair.  Draco’s cries began to lessen and soon Ginny felt no new tears soaking through her shirt.  After awhile he stopped trembling, and soon he exhaled comfortably, not as labored as before when he wept.  Ginny slowly let go of him, and he seemed reluctant to release her, but he did.  She sunk back down on her heels and looked into the face of her enemy.  His red gray eyes looked into her red brown ones.  She wiped a discarded tear off his face and noticed that it nearly cleaned away some of the grim that was caked on his body.

“You’re not a murderer, Malfoy,” she said, kindly.  “It’s…Harry committing these…acts, not you.”  Draco considered her for a moment, then nodded.  

They sat quietly for a several minutes, neither crying anymore, only watching the other.  “You,” began Ginny again, and Draco jumped slightly even though his eyes never left hers.  She put a comforting hand on his that rested on his knee.  “Want more soup?”

Draco nodded.  “Yes…please.”

The youngest Weasley hesitated for a moment before getting up.  “I…have to go down into the kitchen.  Is that going to be alright?  Or…you could come down stairs with me and…”

“NO!” he exclaimed quickly, fear heavy in his voice.  Ginny narrowed her eyes at him.  “I…don’t want to…leave this…room.  I’ll…be…ok while you’re…gone…I think.”  He lowered his head, face reddening from embarrassment.

Ginny considered him for a moment before speaking.  “If you’re…sure, I’ll be right back, I promise.  Okay?”  Draco slowly nodded, and Ginny got up off the floor.  She took her time walking over to the door as she watched the figure of Draco Malfoy fold his arms around his legs in the corner of a broken room.  She stopped at the door for a moment and caught his eye watching her.  She could see a bit of fear in his eyes as she stood at the threshold, but after a moment, she walked through.

The red head sprinted down the stairs and into her kitchen.  The bowl of soup she nearly dropped when she heard her named screamed from the upstairs, still sat waiting on her kitchen counter.  Resolving to use a warming spell on the lukewarm soup when she got up stairs, Ginny covered the bowl and ran back up.

Draco still sat in the corner.  Drops of blood were surrounding him on floor.  Long splats of blood were across his face and in his dirty hair.  His clothes were practically drenched in the substance, and all the wiping away he was doing just didn’t seem to make it go away.  He hadn’t noticed Ginny walking in, out of breath with a bowl in her hand.  He didn’t see her quickly set it aside and fall to her knees in front of him.  Draco only noticed that two hands that weren’t covered in blood, or near dead begging for him to spare their lives, had pulled his hands apart.  Once his eyes registered on the face that was staring at him sympathetically, he felt ashamed again.  “It’s…all over…me, Weasley…don’t you…see it?” he cried.

Ginny shook her head, her lip quivering.  “There’s…nothing on you, Malfoy, it’s just…”

“THERE IS!  DON’T YOU SEE IT?  IT’S ALL OVER…”

“NO!” she shouted, scaring the tears off the rim of her eyelids, causing them to fall down her cheeks.  “THERE’S NOTHING!  PLEASE BELIEVE ME!”

“No…no…no…” Draco mumbled, still trying to rub his hands together as she held them apart.

Ginny swallowed hard but it did nothing for the lump high in her throat, making it difficult for her to even breathe properly.  “Fine, let’s get it off then!”  Draco looked up at her, as Ginny tried to get him to stand.  She pulled the man to his feet, and led him to the bathroom that was connected to the room.  “Go, shower.  Get it off you, Malfoy.  Wash it away.”  She pointed to the shower in the bathroom.

Draco looked wide-eyed at the bathroom.  “I…can’t go in there,” he said fearfully, “not…alone.  He’ll come!  He’ll yank me out of there - he’ll make me come with him - I’ll be vulnerable - I…”

“DRACO!” she said his first name for the first time, in all her life.  “He won’t come!  I’ll…stand outside the door here.  I’ll make sure he can’t hurt you.  I…promise, okay?”  Draco considered Ginny for a moment, then he looked wildly around the room.  “Trust me,” she said, placing a comforting hand on his arm.

Draco looked back into the bathroom.  Slowly, and after swallowing hard, he walked inside.  Ginny grabbed the doorknob and began to pull the door close, but Draco caught it.  “NO - I mean, no, please…may I leave it open?  I…you…promise you’ll just be outside the door?”  Ginny nodded as she let go of the knob.  “Then please…just leave it open…I can’t…just please…”

Ginny stood outside the door with her back facing the bathroom as she heard him slowly undress, turn on the shower, and get inside.  She had to admit, she was grateful he agreed to it because he smelled awful.

_He’ll need clothes_ , she thought.  With that, she walked away from the door and pulled open a drawer of clothing that wasn’t broken; clothing she had for Harry.

“WEASLEY!” screamed Draco from the bathroom.

Clothes flew over her head as she startled by the sudden shout.  She ran for the bathroom door.  Draco’s head was sticking out of the curtain.  “I’m right here, Draco.  I needed to get clothing for you is all.”

“I-I’m sorry…really.  I just…heard footsteps…and…” he said, his face dripping with water that she didn’t know if they were tears or soapy water. 

Draco eased his head back into the shower.  Ginny quietly walked over to the clothes now lying all over the floor.  She grabbed the nearest things, some jogging pants and a long sleeve shirt.  Quietly she tiptoed in the bathroom, replaced his filthy clothes with the clean pair.  Carrying the dirty laundry out the bathroom, she decided it best to take her wand out and make them disappear…forever.

By the time Draco turned the shower off, the tub was covered in blood.  As he scrubbed himself harshly, the blood that followed him into the bathroom and that was all over his body didn’t wash away too easily.  It seemed to splatter around more, the more the soap and water hit his aching, malnourished body.  After Ginny told him she was still right by, the blood seemed to finally wash away from his body, but it was all over her tub, massive amounts having gone down the drain.  

As disturbing as the scene was surrounding him, Draco felt very hungry.

*********

After his shower, putting on a clean pair of clothes, and consuming several bowls of soup and cups of tea, Draco hadn’t seen one drop of blood on or near him.  The screams seemed to die away in his head, and he was sitting comfortably on the bed.

Ginny stayed in the room with him, although they barely talked.  The more she left for soup or tea, or to simply go to the bathroom herself, the more at eased he seemed when she would returned.  Only a few times had she found him back on the floor, but with no tears or rubbing harshly at his clothes or skin.  Being that it was now the middle of the night, Draco was yawning quite a bit.  “You should sleep.  You’ll feel better by morning…hopefully,” she added under her breath.

“I…feel…a bit better already, Weasley, thank you,” Draco said sincerely.

Ginny smiled for the first time since she had brought him there, although she felt it was the least she could do considering the guilt that was eating her hollow at the moment.  “You’re…welcome, Draco.  Well, off to bed then,” she said, getting up from her seat near his bed.  “You’ll…be alright, won’t you?  Want me to wait until you fall asleep?”

Draco cracked a small smile for the first time since he had been brought to her home.  “No, no, it’s quite alright.  I know I’ve been a frighten baby since you…saved me…but I should be alright now.  Just needed a shower and a bit of food to get me wits is all,” he said, trying to sound convincing and Ginny recognized it as ‘trying’ as well.

“Well if you’re sure…” she asked tentatively after considering him for a moment.

“Very…sure, Weasley.  Get some rest, you look like you could use it too,” he said with a bit more confidence in his voice.

“Thanks loads!” said Ginny in mock offense.  “But you’re right.  Night then?”

“Good night.”

***************** 


	5. Rest in Peace

**Rest in Peace**

When Ginny entered her room, she wasn’t sure how good of a night it would be.  Deciding at the last moment when her door was nearly shut, she pulled it completely open just in case.  Ginny still wasn’t 100% sure she could trust Draco, but she couldn’t deny that his actions tonight had been from some sort of deep seeded trauma.  Having to watch all those people murdered as they begged him for their lives.  Ginny remembered in detail every murder he explained to her when he felt fit to talk.  And with each explanation she could see the victim’s faces looking up at HER and begging her for their lives to be spared.  Draco had gone crazy for a moment, thinking he was the murderer, however, Ginny felt she was the one who administered every fatal blow.

That night Ginny tossed and turned in her sleep.  Unbeknownst to her, and because Draco hadn’t told her what he heard in his head, the screams of Harry’s victims seemed to have transfer into her mind.  Their faces flashed in her dreams as they begged and their lifeless bodies made her nauseous.  One scream was so loud, Ginny shot straight up in her bed, face covered in cold sweat.  She rubbed her forehead, and ran her fingers through her crimson hair, trying to will the image of Umbridge’s bloody body and blood curdling scream out of her mind.  

Once Ginny composed herself, she began to lean back on the bed, ready for another fitful sleep, but she heard a massive thud from somewhere inside her house.  It sounded close.  It sounded like the noises Harry made in the room Draco was now in when he was destroying things.  Then it occurred to Ginny to go to that room and make sure Draco was alright.

Quickly, she raced down the hall, images of Draco rubbing his skin off in the corner of the room playing in her mind.  Once she walked through the open door, her premonition was partly correct.  Draco was indeed in the corner of the room, on the floor, but his blanket was wrapped tightly around him.  However, he wasn’t rubbing himself harshly.  He was wiping the cold sweat off his forehead and into his now clean, white blonde hair.

Ruffling his hair in his hand, Draco could feel the sweat on his scalp.  Harry had been standing over his bed, placing the Imperius curse on his body, and yanking him up in a standing position, laughing as he told him they were set to murder his mother in the insane asylum of Azkaban.  Draco fought Harry as much as he could, but Harry just laughed in his face as they rolled around on the floor, splashing the puddles of blood that laid about Ginny’s room.  In one desperate move to get away from his captor, Draco grabbed the end of a broken chair and smashed it into Harry’s head as he had him pinned to the floor.  Harry’s laughter stopped as blood dripped slowly from his hair onto Draco’s face below him.  Soon, the blood dripped from his tear ducts, filling his glasses and then poured out in buckets from behind them.   Finally, pouring out Harry’s nose as well until Draco was drowning and choking on the amount of blood streaming down on him.  

Suddenly, Ginny pulled him out of the pool of blood the moment Harry disappeared.  He trembled, hearing voices screaming his name in a distant whisper.  When he blinked, he saw Ginny again.  This time she was on her knees beside him, frantically shaking him as he sat up in the corner of the room.

“DRACO!” he finally heard at the volume level it was actually being said.  Draco opened his eyes again focusing on the person in front of him.  “Are you alright?” she shouted.  Draco only nodded his head, and lowered it in shame.  “What happened?” Ginny said with less alarm in her voice as she sat next to him on the floor.  He couldn’t respond.  He feared talking about it out loud would cause Harry to suddenly appear in the room.

Ginny watched him for a moment.  This abrupt distraction had kept her nightmare out of her head.  But as she sat and watched Draco still slightly trembling in the corner of the room, wrapped to his neck in her blanket, and refusing to talk, the silence brought the images back for her.  “I…had a nightmare,” she admitted, though she didn’t know why she thought it necessary to say so at such a time.  Draco turned to look at her, she wasn’t sure if she recognized if that was sympathy in his eyes or his own fear.

“Me too,” he said softly, and turned to look back at his lap, willing the drops of blood that appeared on his blanket to disappear.  They began to lessen at the moment of her confession.

“It was…Harry…but then…” began Ginny, looking down at her own lap.

Draco looked back at her.  “How…did you know?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

Ginny looked at him.  “I - how did I know what?”

“That I was dreaming about him?”

Ginny shook her head slowly with sympathy in her eyes.  “I didn’t…well, I suppose I could have guess.  But I meant, I was having a nightmare about Harry, but it…changed…and I…” Ginny shook her head again, but faster, wanting the images of her love turning into her and murdering helpless people to disappear from her mind.  The guilt had already eaten her insides away, and now she felt more pain than when her, Ron, and Hermione found Harry lying dead several feet away from Voldemort’s body ten years ago.  She felt then as if someone had sent twenty evil Bludgers at her body at once.  But ten years later, sitting next to Draco Malfoy, she felt she deserved those Bludgers to attack her where she sat until she was just as lifeless, broken, and battered as Harry was that day.

“Go on…” her former enemy urged, gently.

She couldn’t continue.  Looking down at her lap, she shook her head.  “What about yours…do you want to talk about it?” she asked, quietly.  

Draco shook his head.  The drops of blood on his blanket had disappeared, but the screams were still echoing somewhere in the distance.  They sat in silence for a long time, both willing the images and sounds to leave their minds, neither giving into the sleepiness they felt.

“Why don’t you go lay down at least, Draco?” suggested Ginny.  Her own backside was now screaming at her from sitting on a bare wooden floor for what seemed like hours.

“NO - no,” he said quickly.  “I…feel more comfortable…here…on the floor.  You should go to bed; we’ve been sitting here for hours…I think.”  They could here birds chirping outside although the windows were still dark.  “I’ll be fine, Weasley.  Will…you be?” he asked.

Ginny wasn’t sure how to answer.  She didn’t want to close her eyes out of fear of dreaming again.  “No - I mean, I would…be fine, but…I’ll stay here with you.”

Draco sighed.  “Then at least…” he got up from his corner and walked over to the bed, grabbing both his pillows, and sheet.  Returning to his space, he sat down.  Pushing Ginny suddenly, but gingerly to the side, he put a pillow on the floor where she sat, and held the other against the wall until she took the cue and sat on top of the pillow, and leaned against the other.  He opened the sheet and flung it around her, ignoring her protest.  “Oh, shut it, Weasley,” he said in an even tone.  “You’ve…done a lot for me.  It’s the least I could do.”  Ginny stopped her protest as Draco pulled his blanket around himself again and the two sat quietly on the floor in the broken room.

***********

Harry hadn’t slept in two days.  He searched anywhere he could think of to find Draco.  He was livid.  And even a particularly-rough-from-his-frustration visit to Cho hadn’t calmed his anger in the slightest.  

Now Harry stood on an overgrown lawn of a massive, abandon looking house.  After a small amount of research, he found Malfoy Manor.  The inside of the home was more dank, cobwebbed, and covered in thicker layers of dirt than his parents’ home in Godric’s Hollow.  There were no occupants but one decrypted looking house-elf, who was pushing dirt from one side of the dusty floor to the other.  He didn’t so much as looked up when Harry asked him had any of the Malfoys been there, although Harry knew he had taken personal pleasure in killing Lucius months ago.  The house-elf told Harry that they hadn’t been home, but he was expecting them all very soon.  Understanding that the elf was also senile, Harry explored the house for any sign of Draco or him having at least been there.  

The house was just as empty as he wished he felt.

******

For the next two days, Ginny didn’t go to work.  Draco refused to leave the bedroom.  And every night, the two would have nightmares until Ginny would come to his room and find him on the floor.  Other then that, Draco was feeling much better.  Three meals a day and showering seemed to be getting him healthier.  The nightmares may have still been present, but the sudden screams that would enter his mind, or splatters blood he use to envision were few and far between.  There were times, however, that Ginny would catch him randomly rubbing air off his hand or legs, but one comforting pat from her would stop him.  

Although Ginny couldn’t get him down stairs to eat in the kitchen, she didn’t mind sitting in the room with him during meals.  They spoke more frequently now about other things, not even so much as mentioning Harry.   

Tonight, they sat quietly at the little table she had set up in the room for him to eat his meals, often with her.  “You’re an awful cook, Weasley,” said Draco to his plate, trying to hide his smile.

Ginny narrowed her eyes, but suppressed a smile as well.  “Couldn’t tell with you, could I?  The way you lap up everything I put in front of you!”  Draco smiled freely at her, and she did the same before continuing to eat her food.  “Maybe you could come down to the kitchen and cook something for a change.  Show me what I’m doing wrong, then,” she suggested.

“Cook?  Me?  HA!  That’s servants stuff!” he said in mock indignation.

Ginny dropped her fork.  “Oh, I’m your servant now, am I?”

Draco’s smile widened, then lessen considerably almost instantly as he watched her.  “No.  You’re my savior, actually.  Thanks,” he said sincerely.

Her smile faded too as she lowered her head.  “You don’t have to keep thanking me, Draco,” she said just as sincerely, because every time he did, it made her feel even guiltier.

“You don’t have to keep saying ‘sorry’ every time you run in here after one of my…nightmares or just randomly as you do.  What do you have to be sorry for?” Draco asked.  

Ginny held her breath.  She didn’t know how to explain to him that those nightmares were caused by her.  That all the murders he had witnessed, including his father’s, were her fault because she selfishly brought Harry  - or some version of him - back when he didn’t ask to be.  She had dreaded the moment she had to admit this to him; her heart sinking every time he vigorously rubbed the skin of his hands, or she found him trembling in the corner of the room.  

“Oh, I know why…” he said suddenly, and Ginny almost choked on the air held in her throat.

“W-why?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

“They told me I got this horrible scar on my arm after you interviewed me last year.  I remember blacking out before you left, and I woke up with a gash on my arm.  It was you who did it, wasn’t it?  Trying to get back at me?” he explained with no contempt in his voice for such a statement, if anything he sounded understanding about it.

Ginny sighed, but it did nothing to steady her pounding heart beat.  “YES - yes that’s…” she began, and then dropped her head toward her plate.  “No, no…Draco, that’s not it!”  Her eyes filled with tears and Ginny buried her face in her hands, and wept.  She began mumbling incoherently into her palms until Draco had come around to her side of the table, kneeled beside her, and pulled her hands apart as she had done him on numerous occasions.  After begging her to repeat herself, Ginny met Draco’s eyes.  “I’m…the cause…of all your…nightmares…and…”

Draco narrowed his eyes at her.  “That’s ridiculous, Weasley!  You sound like me now, completely mental!  It’s Potter’s fault, not yours - OURS!”

“IT IS MY FAULT!” she shouted in his face.  Draco stood up and looked down at her sobbing form in the chair.  Ginny didn’t dare look up at him.

“How?” he asked evenly, but unconvinced.

Ginny sniffed hard, and futilely wiped off her dripping face.  “I…missed him…so much…even before…he was gone…that I made a Horcrux…just in case I lost him…” she began to the floor, occasionally stopping to compose herself long enough to continue.  “…you’re the blood of his enemy, I’m the flesh of his servant, and I don’t want to mention what of his father…” Draco backed away slowly the more her confession struggled to free itself from her.  “Then he was so…angry.  He didn’t want to come back.  Dumbledore reckons…that the part of his soul I used…was the part we all have, that contained anger…evil…I’m not sure which, but…”

“You…” Draco finally found the ability to speak having listened to her for several minutes without the ability to utter a single word.  “…brought him…back…because you…loved him…missed him?”

Ginny nodded to the floor, then chanced a glance up at him.  She stood up slowly, and walked toward him, but he continued to back away from her.  “I’m…so sorry, Draco, honestly!  I…regret it…so much.  I…” she stopped walking toward him when he was finally backed up against the bathroom door, his eyes turning slightly frightful.  Ginny hated the sight of him that way, although she had seen him terrified on numerous occasions, but this time, she had directly caused it.  She lowered her head in shame, and also because she was unable to look at him anymore.  “I’m…sorry, Draco.  I…” with that, Ginny ran out the door, down her hall, and into her own room before she threw herself down on the bed and wailed loudly.

****

Harry appeared in the cauldron in Ginny’s basement.  She stood with a sinister smile on her face.  “Brilliant,” she whispered coldly.  She watched Harry’s naked form trembling in the cauldron, tears rolling down his face.  “May I help you out, darling?” asked Ginny coolly, the corner of her mouth curved up.  Grabbing hold of Harry’s cold, wet arm, she nearly yanked him out the cauldron, causing him to slip on the floor.  He laid on his face and Ginny laughing evilly.  “Oh, my hero!  My love!  How unbelievably idiotic you are?  Now clothe yourself,” she spat, throwing garments at his head.

Ginny had her wand pointed in Harry’s back, pushing him down a long, twisted hallway.  They entered a dark room with only the light of the moon casting long shadows on the floor.  There was a noticeably trembling figure in the corner of the room.  Ginny pushed Harry with her hand toward that figure.  He was shaking as much as the faceless figure in the corner.  “Now, let me see,” Ginny began, menacingly.  “How shall you take care of this pathetic mess on the floor?”  The figured wept but quieted itself quickly.

“M-m-me?” asked Harry in a shaky voice.

“Yes, you,” said Ginny, slamming a wand in Harry’s hand.  “You shall torture it, then put it out of its misery.  Just for practice because this won’t be the last.”

“NO!” Harry nearly shouted, although terror was prominent in his voice.  “I won’t!  You can’t make me!”

Ginny laughed sadistically.  “Oh, but I can, Love.  I brought you back.  I own you; your mine.  Always have been, always will be!  Now kill it!” she demanded, aiming her wand at Harry’s face.

“No, please…” begged the figure in corner of the room, and Harry in unison.  The figure moved his head into the light, revealing Draco’s tear-streaked face.  “Please, Ginny?”  They both said again.  “Don’t hurt us!  Please, please Ginny, please have mercy, please don’t do this, please, please, please…” they continued together.  Ginny covered her ears as their begging and cries grew louder, seeming to echo more in her head then in the room.  Ginny began screaming for them to stop.

“WEASLEY!” she heard her named screamed in her face.  Ginny opened her eyes to Draco shaking her awake.  He was kneeling beside her on the floor, next to her bed.  Her head began to throb instantly, having must of hit it when she landed on the floor.  “You alright?” he asked, helping her to sit up.

Ginny allowed her eyes to focus in the dim room before she spoke.  “I’m…I’m fine,” she said unconvincingly.

“You are, are you?  You didn’t sound it.  Another nightmare, I reckon?” Draco asked, shifting off his knees, and sitting down beside her against the bed.

Ginny lowered her head and nodded.  “I suppose you feel I deserve it now?” she said solemnly to her lap.

Draco didn’t speak.  Part of him wanted to say “yes” to her statement, yet another part understood how horrifying nightmares could be, considering he had just woken up from one.  “You’ll be alright, then?” he said, getting up from the floor.

Ginny nodded, feeling even more shameful because he hadn’t answered her question.  Draco headed toward the open bedroom door.  “You…” Ginny began to her lap, “came out your room…for me?”

Draco stopped at the threshold, and took a breath.  “I was…already awake having just had a nightmare myself.  When I got comfortable back on the floor, I heard you screaming.  You’ve done it for me, I…just returned the favor is all,” he explained, and left the room without so much as a glance back.  

Ginny crawled back on her bed, and cried herself back to sleep.

************

Shrouded in a black cloak, Harry walked the streets of Diagon Alley for the second time in three days.  He had taken to searching the wizarding shopping district, in hopes of finding Draco there or in Knockturn Alley. 

One evening as he was leaving Knockturn Alley, Harry rounded the corner leading into Diagon Alley.  Unconsciously, he ended up outside of Fred and George’s joke shop.  His anger was coursing through his veins so fiercely, he hadn’t even noticed he was walking by a store he helped opened,  and that was run by two people who were like brothers to him…in his previous life.  A strong wind blew through the Alley, and Harry’s hood slid off.  The door of the shop opened and Harry hadn’t noticed the sound of tiny feet running up behind him as he struggled to get his hood straight and properly back on his head.  

Suddenly, he felt a tiny body wrapped around his leg, squeezing tightly.  Harry looked down to the blue eyes of a small boy with bushy red hair.  “Harwy, Harwy, I know you, Harwy,” said the little boy, smiling up at Harry.  “I was named affer you.  I Harwy too.  Daddy say you are my goddaddy!  But Mummy say you gone to heaven with Granddaddy.”

Harry couldn’t speak as he examined all the familiar features of the little boy.  He could see his former two best friends staring up at him at once.  All the anger inside him disappeared.  The emptiness that Cho had often provided for him was taking over.  He couldn’t smile at the boy beaming up at him, but he was grateful for the relief.  “Harry!” yelled a woman’s voice from outside the door.  “H-Harry?” she said again as she saw the little boy still clutched to the leg of the man.  Harry looked up into Hermione’s eyes.  He watched her swallow hard as she watched him with tears instantly building in her eyes. 

_Harry_ , he heard her say again in her head.

“He dinnit go to heaven with Granddaddy, Mummy,” said little Harry.  “He’s here!  Don’ cry, Mummy.”  The little boy let go of Harry’s leg.  Harry’s hand instantly reached toward the child as he turned around.  He just brushed his hand across the little ones red, bushy hair before he ran into his mother’s arms.  “Now, I have a goddaddy too, Mummy?” asked the little boy when Hermione picked him up, and held him close.  

_I wish, sweetheart_ , Harry heard Hermione say in her mind.  “Come on, your father will be very angry you ran out like that, H-Harry,” Hermione tried to scold her son, with tears streaming down her face.  Luckily, her son’s head was over her shoulder, and he couldn’t see his mother staring at Harry.

Something inside of Harry wanted to walk over to Hermione and her son, and hug them both.  Caring wasn’t a feeling he had experienced since had been brought back against his will, but not feeling angry, confused, or sad, made the idea worth trying.  As he stepped toward them, the door of the shop swung open again.  Harry instantly pulled his hood up as Ron walked out the store.

“There you are, young man!  I’ve told you several times not to…” began Ron to his son.  Harry turned and began to walk away.

“Daddy,” the little boy interrupted, still in Harry’s earshot, “Harwy is not…”

“What did you find out?” Hermione interrupted her son.

“Percy’s has been attacked.  He just woke up a few days ago, but Ginny’s been to see him he said,” Ron explained to his wife before Harry heard both his best friends and godson walk back into the store.

Harry stopped in his tracks as a realization set in.  That joyful feeling of emptiness he had achieved from interacting with his godson had vanished, and the anger that ran his everyday was crashing over him again in large, unforgiving waves.

**********

Ginny sat at her dining room table alone, her dinner becoming colder by the minute as she picked at it.  She watched Draco in her kitchen, fixing himself his own plate of food.  He had started venturing out his room when he wanted food, not wanting Ginny to fix him a plate, or bring it to him.  But never did he stay downstairs to eat with her, nor did she feel welcome to sit with him in his room.  Neither spoke anymore either, outside of waking each other up from fitful nightmares.  And tonight was no different.

Laying awake in her bed, not wanting to fall asleep and dream, and unable to fall asleep anyway, Ginny wiped silent tears from her eyes.  She didn’t know how long Draco would be staying there now that he knew her secret.  He seemed angry with her, but he didn’t say anything ill to her, or give her nasty looks.  The fact that he would do all he could to quickly compose himself after a nightmare so that she didn’t stay in his room was an indication to Ginny that he rather not be around her.  But she didn’t want him to leave, not only because he would be caught the moment he left, or that Harry may find him and kill him, but because she felt responsible for his well-being.  She owed it to him to look after him.  And in addition to that, she appreciated that when she woke up screaming lately, he was there to console her, be it briefly, but console her nonetheless.

Draco tossed and turned in the bed.  His fits of paranoia had subsided greatly since being in Ginny’s house.  Rarely did he see drops of blood out of nowhere, or hear the screams of victims in his waking hours.  Waking hours only, because his sleeping hours weren’t so lucky.  

The bed was soft, the pillows softer, and the blanket was always warm and comfortable like being held by a mother.  His full stomach and clean body made everything around Draco feel ten times better.  Tightly tucked in under the blanket, Draco turned over on his back.  The blanket was under his chin keeping him warm, but a soft cool breeze caressed his cheeks.  Suddenly, the blankets began to get tighter around his neck, as the cool breezed turned into an icy cold one.  It was becoming difficult to breath as the blanket pressed hard on his throat.  The bed began to move as Draco felt hands above his blanket.  He refused to open his eyes when he heard voices pleading his name in a deafening chant from under his bed.  The hands began pulling at the protection of his blanket and he began gasping for air.  “No…no, please…” he said in a strained voice.  Finally, he felt relief from the choking, but instant terror when the blanket was yanked off his body.  Draco’s eyes finally snapped open as he felt the hands pulling at his feet, legs, arms, and even reaching for his head from every angle around the bed.  These long, ownerless hands seemed to have sprung up from under his bed, nearly pulling him apart as the screams from under his bed begged him for their lives.

Then, the silhouette of someone standing in the doorway made Draco stop his struggle against the relentless hands.  The figure stepped forward, and Draco could see the moonlight from the outside shine on Harry’s glasses.  Draco shouted for mercy but Harry steadily and quietly walked toward the bed….

“WAKE UP!” yelled Ginny, shaking Draco as hard as she could.

Draco opened his eyes to Ginny.  “He’s…here…”

********

Jinxy, Ginny’s owl, laid dead on the kitchen floor.  His hooting at an intruder entering the kitchen caused him to take his last breath when a green light hit the bird in the breast.  The shouting from upstairs also gave cover to the intruder, having broken a window to get inside.  The man walked into the living room, looking toward the stairs only instead of the searching for others on first floor of the house.  He stood in the living room listening with a menacing smile on his face and with a sinister laugh to follow.

However, that laugh died away quickly when someone Apparated in the foyer of Ginny’s home.  Turning his wand toward the doorway, the man twitched as he blinked hard at what he saw before him.  “Blimey, I know I’m mad, but I’ve yet to have such hallucinations.  You a ghost, then?” he asked the figure in the hall.

Harry stepped forward, his green angry eyes narrowing at the unkempt, pale, gravely thin man in front of him.  The smell emanating off his body made Harry’s eyes water.  “Who are you?” asked Harry, his wand already raised to the twitching, smiling, and destitute-looking man.

“Savior even after death, are you?  The great Harry Potter,” smiled the man.  “Well, your highness, you can’t do much to save anyone tonight.  I’ve been watching this lass for quite sometime now.  She hasn’t left the house in days.  Figure she’s right for taking now.  Oh, and I will take her before I kill her.  Been awhile for me, see.  Suppose she’s giving it to that bloke she has here.  But no matter, I’ll kill him first, then take my time in killing her.”

The once Boy Hero stared at the deranged man well after he stopped speaking.  The pathetic wizard smiled and chuckled as his features twitched oddly and seemingly beyond his control.  The Gryffindor felt no pity for anyone in that house, especially the lunatic in front of him.  “Kill her?” Harry said in an even tone, “Not before me you won’t!”  With a flick of his wand, he killed the man who still smiled sinisterly as he hit the floor.

*********

Draco, who had pushed past Ginny when she woke him, was now shaking violently in his corner of the room.  Ginny was by his side, trying to calm him down as he ranted on and on about Harry being there.  “It was just a dream, Draco!  Believe me, please.  Harry will not come anywhere near here…ever again.”

“He is here, Weasley!  I can’t…I can’t go through that again!  If he is not here now…he will be here at any moment, I know it!  He…” Draco’s voice trailed completely off as his eyes widen, looking past Ginny’s head.

Ginny turned around to see what Draco was staring frightfully at, expecting to see nothing as usual.  “H-Harry…” she said, his name getting caught in her throat.  He didn’t speak, only stepped further into the room.  Ginny stood up and in front of Draco.  Wandless and fearful of the angry look in the eyes of the one she loved so deep in her heart, she stood strong.  “Harry, I…”  Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat.  “I’m so sorry for...”  Ginny stopped as Harry raised his wand, aiming directly at her heaving chest.

“NO!” yelled Draco, jumping up from the floor and rushing past Ginny, knocking Harry to the ground. 

The two men wrestled on the ground.  Random lights flew from Harry’s wand and his hand with him being angry enough to kill without the magical instrument.  Ginny screamed for them to stop, while dodging the misdirected green lights shooting from Harry.  She didn’t know whether to run to her bedroom for her own wand or find a way to physically intervene.

Having fought each other physically several times since Harry’s return, Harry and Draco punched and kneed each other ferociously.  Blood poured from both their noses, and Draco was even coughing up blood.  Regardless of that, and the fear coursing through Draco’s veins, he fought Harry.  He would not witness another murder at Harry’s hands, particularly Ginny’s.

Ginny’s screams and Draco’s cursing as he fought, flooded Harry’s mind so much, he could no longer feel the physical abuse his enemy was bestowing upon his body at the moment.  Instead, he could hear his mother’s cries when he was pulled out her arms.  He could hear his father and godfather shouting as they tried to pull him back.  He could hear his own cries as he struggled to keep hold of them.  Then Harry heard his own yells of anger when he was alone, back in the world that kept him from living.  Now back, he made sure to end the lives that had made him suffer, all those who kept him from living the life he wanted when he was there.  But for what?  Harry still felt trapped.  His only freedom was death.  And who had taken that freedom from him?  

He opened his eyes and caught sight of a frighten Ginny still pleading with them to stop fighting.

Harry was on his back, Draco on top of him, punching his already blood-splattered face.  His glasses askew and cracked, the Gryffindor raised his wand to the Slytherin’s neck.  Draco froze as the wand pushed into his neck so harshly, Harry knew it could break through his skin.

Ginny fell to her knees next to them.  Tears dripped off her chin, but she didn’t wipe them away.  “Please, Harry, don’t kill him,” she whimpered quietly.  “It’s me who’s done this too you!  I deserve it!”

“NO, Weasley!” shouted Draco with the wand pointed at his jugular, his hand up toward Ginny, and his silver eyes defiantly staring down at Harry.  “Potter, do what you want to me, take me with you, kill me slowly if you care to, just…don’t hurt her.  Can we make that deal?”  Harry’s eyes narrowed at Draco as he pushed the wand deeper into his pale column. “No, Draco!” yelled Ginny, standing up and rushing toward Harry’s wand.  

Colliding into both of them caused multi-colored sparks to fly out of Harry’s wand.  Ginny screamed as the sparks burned her badly around her neck, and the tangle of bodies caused her to catch a knee in the eye.  Draco caught her head before the ricochet from the knee in her eye caused her to smash her head into the floor.  However, he let go of her when Harry’s shoulder collided with his groin.  At the same time, Harry’s glasses broke clear in two when Draco’s elbow smashed into the center of them.  Yet, the three continued to wrestle for Harry’s wand, each getting their hands on it at different times.

Harry, now in possession of his own wand, knew he had no use for it anymore.  He was beyond livid.  He saw blurry little blue, then red, then green sparks fly out his fingertips, burning either of them that he touched as they wrestled.  However, those sparks were no longer produced because of the anger he had toward Draco and Ginny, but because of the immense sadness he had within himself.  The sadness was uninvited.  Harry hadn’t felt any real sadness since the first week he was back.  Anger had successfully taken over both his sadness and confusion.  When the anger had gotten to be too much, he opted for emptiness.  Now even emptiness couldn’t calm the small bit of soul Ginny had extracted from him so many years ago.  He wanted to feel nothing but his mother’s arms around him again.  That would not be provided staying on earth, killing those who had hurt him in the past, and now wrestling on the floor with the last two that had.

Squeezing his blacken, green eyes tightly, Harry finally released a few unshed tears that had managed to rise to the brim of his eyelids.  Before he realized it, a force vibrated through his body causing the two on top of him to fly clear across the room.  As Ginny and Draco moaned in pain, grabbing their heads and backs from landing harshly on the wooden floor, Harry sat slowly up on his knees.  His wand was in his hand, his head lowered to the ground, as silent tears dripped from his eyes.

Ginny’s back ached; she had slid across the bed first but the force still caused her to land harshly on the floor.  She looked up with her swollen eye and saw Draco’s face in the corner as he held his head in pain.  He was alive, and so was she; this shocked Ginny.  Raising herself with the help of the bed, Ginny could see Harry across the room on his knees, his wand held loosely in his hands.  Her heart ached more than her back, her head, and her swallow eye combined.  She knew she had reduced this once great hero, this once great friend, this loved of her life to the defeated figure before her with water dripping from his lowered head.  For one brief moment, she allowed herself to believe that since he hadn’t killed them, that Harry was back, her Harry was back.  Maybe it was possible that he could forgive her now, and love her like she intended, like she had dreamed, and fantasized about day after day since she was ten years old.

But then Ginny remember that her latest dreams of Harry had turned into horrifying nightmares.  Nightmares that depicted her hero, her love, murdering others in cold blood.  Nightmares that were reality, her reality that she created the moment she prayed and dropped the Snitch-Horcrux into the cauldron.  A reality now that she would have to change.  She felt despicable for what she had done to him for her own selfish needs, and she knew now what she had to do to make him truly happy…or at least give him the peace he deserved.

Ginny limped around the bed, just as Draco rolled onto his also aching back.  She pulled her leg out of his reach as he instructed her to stop through his bloody, swollen lips.  Harry hadn’t moved a muscle as Ginny approached him.  Lowering down, she winced only slightly as she sat on her knees in his same position.  The pain in her chest heighten greatly as she watched his tears pool in front of him on the floor.  Draco’s demands for her to get away from Harry seemed to be miles away from her. All she saw was Harry, as she always had.  Swallowing the lump in her throat, although her eyes were just as wet as his, Ginny slowly reached for him.  She rubbed her hand gingerly through his raven hair, and yet he still didn’t move.  Sniffing hard, she glided her hand over his forehead and again through his hair until he lifted his head slightly.  The green eyes she loved so dearly were beyond pain stricken.  They seemed almost pleading for a release the tears were just not providing for him.  Ginny bit the inside of her lip, willing herself not to sob as loud as her soul wanted to while watching him.  She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, his scar that made him a hero.  Her lips lingered on the spot as her other hand, that wasn’t presently still in his hair, gently pulled his wand away from his loose grip.  Harry sniffed for the first time, and Ginny felt that if she didn’t turn the wand on herself, that that could be enough to make her die right there.  

Leaning her forehead to his, she squeezed the ocean of tears out her eyes, before opening them again.  “I’m so sorry, Harry…” she whispered as she turned the wand to his chest.  “I…I…love you.”  

Ginny held the wand tightly in her hand and closed eyes once; ready and vastly unready to give him his peace.  She prayed for the higher power to forgive him for his actions that may warrant a place in Hell, and give her eternal damnation instead.  _Amen_ , she said in her mind, not knowing Harry could hear her.  Ginny held her breath as the wand trembled in her hand.

“Weas - Ginny, no!” shouted Draco, rushing over to her and taking the wand out her hand.  Harry still hadn’t moved as Ginny narrowed her sorrowful eyes at Draco.  “You can’t…do this.  It will destroy you, Ginny,” Draco said sincerely, getting down on his knees in front of Harry and beside her.  “You…love him.  You can’t kill him.  You have to mean it in order to use an Unforgivable.”

Ginny wiped the tears off her face and sniffed hard as she looked at Harry’s lowered head.  “I…want to…give him peace.  I brought him back…I deserve to be…just as…” her crying overwhelmed her.

Draco put his hand on her shoulder.  “You don’t have the strength to do it.  And you don’t deserve to be plagued with the memory of it.”  He brushed a tear off her cheek, then gently glided his fingers over her eyelids, causing them to close and shed more tears in the process.  She lowered her head, and Draco turned to the defeated form of his old enemy.  

Having never killed anyone himself, Draco swallowed hard as he aimed that wand at Harry who still hadn’t so much as moved a muscle as the tears continued to drip from his face.  “Avada Kedavra,” he squicked with as much strength as he could muster.

As the green light shot from Harry’s wand and hit him in the chest, Ginny began to wail.  Harry’s now lifeless body merely slumped over to the side as if he just decided to take a nap.  Ginny was on him, crying loudly on his arm.  Harry’s wand had dropped from Draco’s hand the moment the green light entered Harry’s body.  He began to slowly back up to the bed, in shock of what he had done, and barely registering the scene of the crying woman over her fallen love.

*********************************************************************

**Epilogue**      

A year later, Cho Chang-Lee sat in her living room.  A tear fell down her cheek.  This was not usual, happening on occasion when she looked too intently into her baby boy’s startling green eyes.  They were very familiar to Cho, and very unusual for her and her new husband Joseph’s family, having no history of them at all.  Even still, her husband married her a month after she found out she was pregnant.  Not understanding how it was possible, considering the little activity her and her husband had with each other was very protected against pregnancy.  Cho had to tell herself that those vivid dreams she had been having of her lost love, Harry Potter, at the time the child had been conceived, were just that, dreams, and couldn’t have swayed the genetic make up of her raven haired, round green-eyed son.  Her heart ached every time he looked at her, but she loved him more then life itself.

Ginny Weasley’s home was no longer just her own.  Draco Malfoy was, just at first, her unusual choice for a roommate.  After Harry’s second death, they transfigured his body into an emerald stone.  They placed that stone in the Snitch that once held a bit of his soul, and took it out to his parents’ grave, not wanting to disturb his original grave, and the monument with its visitors and historians who often frequented the fallen hero’s plot.  Instead, they buried it in between his parents’ graves in the dead of night.  Ginny planted a flower there that never lost its petals or wilted even in torrential rains, or harsh winter snow; a flower that had eternal life when surrounded by love.

Ginny and Draco decided to keep the return of Harry Potter out of the public eye.  The only other two that knew he had returned, Ron and Hermione, were not included in his second burial, Ginny not wanting them to have to relive the lost of their best friend twice in a lifetime.  So it was successfully kept under wraps that Harry had come back and murdered all those who had hurt him somehow in the past.  In fact, Draco Malfoy did not have to return to Azkaban because of the idea he and Ginny came up with for keeping Harry’s legend clean.  

On his final night, after Draco did all he could to pull Ginny away from Harry’s body, they were shocked to the find the serial killer that had been in all the papers, murdered in Ginny’s living room.  The two, even with a teary-eyed Ginny, came up with the story that after Billy Gottlieb escaped from the psycho ward at St. Mungo’s hospital, he broke into Azkaban with the absurd desire to stay.  However, in the process of killing many prisoners, decided to kidnap Draco and force him to accompany him on many of the insane wizard’s murderous rampages.  The Aurors, after listening to the intricate details of all the murders that Draco was forced to witness, believed him, particularly when he spoke of his heroic effort to finally disarm the man and take him down before he hurt the poor little red head, Ginny Weasley.

Heroic as his story may have sounded to the Aurors, and in the Daily Prophet (courtesy of Ginny), heroic he was not behind closed doors.  For six months after Harry’s death, Draco still endured nightmares and was terrified to leave Ginny’s home, but mostly Ginny.  Ginny accepted this because she did not want him to leave either.  The two had shared in a such a traumatic experience, that the thought of being away from one another for too long was sure to caused them to go into a form of panic.  So after much protest from her family, Ginny and Draco became roommates; comforting each other through nightmares, and developing a kinship all their own.  

After much coaxing from Ginny, and the fact that staying away from each other all day while she was at the Prophet was proving to be too much for them, Draco took a remedial job at the newspaper.  But he and Ginny were happy to at least be in the same building as one another.  No one, her family or their coworkers, understood the friendship they had developed, and why they had to constantly run and check on the other when they weren’t in the same room.  But no one spoke about it…to them at least.

No one also knew of what had begun to develop a year after Harry’s death.  At first, it started as comforting kisses after either would have a nightmare of Harry’s brief return.  Then it became stolen kisses at random, from happy moments to arguments over who should have made dinner that evening.  Draco’s heart had ached for Ginny well before their first kiss in the middle of the night after she screamed herself awake, but he was the always the first to pull away from their embraces, chalking their kisses up to close quarters and having shared such a horrible experience together.  However, it soon became undeniable, and the two allowed themselves to express how deeply in love they had fallen for each other.  By the end of the following year, they were married, already waiting eagerly to welcome a baby girl to the world.

*****

Sybil Trelawney walked across her empty, perfumed hazed classroom carrying her favorite pink tea set on the night Draco’s and Ginny’s baby girl was born, two years after Harry’s second death.  The tray of porcelain fell to the ground with a thunderous crash as the Professor’s already large eyes bugged out their sockets and her voice seemed caught in her throat.

_“The children of those who share a lost love will find love within each other.  But they shall discover they share the blood of the enemy that has fathered the first, while the enemy himself has fathered the second.  Yet, their greatest love will falter when one must rid the world of the other for the greater good._

_“When that love is lost, the survivor will repeat the history of their creation.”_

As Trelawney came out of her trance, no one but her cat knew she had spoken such words and had made her third real prediction.

Down in the Department of Mysterious, in the Hall of Prophesy, a tiny, glowing glass orb appeared on a shelf.

THE END… 


End file.
